THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


iHX 


Quiet  the  lake 

Lay.  —The  Demon. 


THE  CITY  OF  IS 

AND  OTHER  POEMS 


—  BY 


FREDERICK   MILTON   WILLIS 


Frontispiece  by  Ernest  C.  Picxotto 


Pticc  $1.00 


Mercury  Press 

Odd  Fellows  Building 

San  Francisco,  California 


COPYRIGHT,  1903, 
BY  FREDERICK  MILTON  WILLIS 


•PS 


DEDICATION. 

To  California — California  the  beautiful,  California  the 
potentially  surpassingly  intellectual  and  spiritual, — 
does  the  author,  looking  with  awe  into  the  dim  future, 
lovingly  dedicate  these  his  first  glimmerings  of  feelings 
of  beauty  and  gropings  of  thoughts  of  rational  interpre 
tation  of  Outer  and  Inner. 

Would  that  they  might  be  considered  aspiring 
streamers,  however  tenuous,  however  indefinite  and 
unsubstantial,  forerunning  the  coming  day — leading  in, 
in  company  goodlier  than  themselves,  the  host  of 
brilliant  ones  of  the  great  era  of  light  that  lieth  before 
this  western  Greece  which  shall  be  more  than  Greece — 
CALIFORNIA. 

Berkeley,  California.  F.  M.  W. 


234373 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

The  City  of  Is i 

Rich  as  the  Falling  of  Night 10 

Saloethe 1 1 

To  Age 17 

The  Triumph  of  Love 1 8 

America,  Land  of  the  New  Age 22 

Through  the  Valley  of  Nil 23 

Civil  Anguish 27 

The  Mystic 33 

Interpretation,  or  a  Stroll  in  a  Garden 34 

Man's  Proper  Element 38 

The  Demon 39 

Oh,  the  Free  Air's  the  Mansion  to  Live  in  !  56 

The  Watcher 60 

Soul- Blindness 65 

Excess 66 

Love-Sonnet 67 

The  Dawn  of  Hope 68 

Self  Comprehension 71 

Fire 72 

Supremacy 74 

O  Father  of  Light ! 76 

Star  Worlds 79 

Flee,  Flee,  O  My  Soul! 81 


PAGE 

Mother  of  the  Sky 84 

The  Price 85 

Illusion 87 

A  Vision  of  Degrees 92 

Consolation  93 

L,o  ve 94 

What  Gives  the  Sufferer  Strength  ? 95 

The  Incomplete 96 

Sorrow-Leaden 97 

Turn,  oh  Turn  those  Eyes  upon  Me! 98 

Waltham  and  Margra 99 


.THE  CITY  OF  IS.* 

Within  the  mystic  spirit-sphere, 
Where  do  appear  and  disappear 
Myriad  things  of  spaec  and  time, 
There V  a  silent,  wondrous  clime, 
Where  every  day  is  almost  night — 
A  clime,  at  best,  of  gray  twilight. 

The  lone  traveler,  traveling  here, 

Whoe'er  he  be,  has  much  to  fear, 

And  his  must  be  a  snail-like  pace. 

For  'tis  a  dismal,  dismal  place, 

A  place  of  never-lifting  fogs, 

Of  gloomy  pools  with  bordering  bogs 

Drooped  o'er  by  many  a  venomous  tree, 

A  place  of  swoon  and  letharg}', 

A  place1  of  dire  inclemency. 

A  place  of  hateful  clogs  and  stresses, — 

Oil.  woe  to  him  that  onward  presses 

Through  its  perilous  wildernesses! 

"Pronounced  as  if  spelled  Iss. 


THE   CITY   OF   IS 

But,  though  the  yielding,  mossy  ground 
Oft  prove  quagmire,  seeming  sound; 
And  though  the  delicate  eress-like  grasses 
Knot,  and  trip  him  as  he  passes; 
And  though  misshapen,  dripping  trees 
Keach  out  leaf-hidden  limbs  and  seize, 
Like  tentacles,  his  shrinking  flesh: 
And  though  before,  beside  him  fresh 
Impressions  form  and  quickly  fade — 
Of  feet — by  nothing  mortal  made; 
And  though  with  dainty,  glove-like  touch 
Many  an  unseen  hand  with  much 
Deliberation  stroke  his  cheek 
Or,  with  persistent  pressure,  urge 
Him  to  some  fearful  hollow's  verge, 
Let  not  the  fainter-hearted  shriek, 
Let  not  the  firmer  heart  despair, — 
For  this  humid,  lethal  air 
And  this  dark,  miasmal  land 
Contain  a  CITY,  rich  and  grand, 
One  whose  lofty,  jealous  walls 
Enclose  the  haughtiest  kingly  halls, 
Proud  temples,  palaces  and  towers 
(Prouder,  haughtier  far,  than  ours), 
Whose  very  slightest  glistening  spire 


THE   CITY    OF   IS 

Dotli  seem  to  pierce  the  sky,  in  fire 
(The  gentle  sky,  in  silver  fire)  ; 
Whose  golden  domes  and  minarets 
And  pinnacles  and  parapets, 
From  the  shade  and  vapor  there. 
Seem  part  of  Earth  and  part  of  Air. 
And  thither  from  the  \vilds  a  I  tout 
Lead  many  ways,  hut  none  without 
Its  open  gold-and-marhle  gate 
Where  sphinxes  dream  and  calculate 
And,  with  a  calm  naught  can  dispel, 
Guard  th'  Eternal  Secret  well. 

Ere  entering,  let  the  Stranger  stay 
A  moment  and  the  prospect  weigh : 
Beyond,  a  Karnak-pillared  alley 
Leads  inward  far,  majestically. 
And  in  hroad  stretches,  either  side, 
Great  temple-archways  open  wide: 
And  darkening  columned  passageways 
Form  many  an  eye-perplexing  maze; 
And  here  and  there,  aloft,  are  seen, 
Ahove  high  roofs  that  intervene. 
Grand  porticoes  of  polished  stone — 
The  hlackest,  whitest,  ever  known — 


TIIK    CITY    OF    IS 

That  open  into  noble  halls 
And  long,  curved  galleries  with  walls 
Of  crystal  and  light  balustrade 
Of  finest  alabaster  made. 

Xow  down  that  deep,  dark  Karnak-alley 

Leading  in  majestically, 

Let  the  Stranger  take  his  way 

And  let  his  feelings  have  full  play 

In  the  solitude  sublime 

Of  this  town  entombed  in  time. 

O'er  its  seeming  permanence 

And  wealth  of  wild  magnificence: — 

Its  mingling  of  the  rich  moresque 

With  the  graceful  arabesque; 

Its  marvelous,  fine  parquetry 

And  myriad-colored  marquetry; 

Its  multi-figured  ornament 

From  pedestal  to  pediment ; 

Its  graven  writings,  signs  obscure, 

On  dado  and  entablature, 

On  obelisk  and  wall  and  shrine; 

Its  porphyry-carved  reminder  there, 

'Mid  mortal  things,  of  things  divine — 


TIIK    CITY    OF    IS 

The  pallid  hand,  august  and  grand. 

Upon  yon  solitary  column, 

Up-pointing  in  the  solemn  air; 

Yon  pillar  there,  alone  he  fore 

The  gloomy,  gaping  temple-door, 

Whose  shaft  the  spiral  horror  hinds — 

Down  which  the  pitch-hlack  serpent  winds. 

With  dangling  head  of  pearl  and  gold 

Deep-worn  by  votaries'  lips  untold ; 

Its  marble  caryatides; 

Its  porches  and  its  balconies : 

Its  pillared  aisles  and  long  arcades: 

Its  void,   foot-polished  esplanades; 

Its  many  a  stairflight,  dazzling  white. 

Ascending  to  the  misty  shade 

In  many  a  stately  colonnade; 

Its  princely  domes  of  glowing  gold, 

"Mid  halls,  large,  clustering,  manifold; 

Its  great  pavilions,  gloomy  parks, 

Silent  founts,  memorial  marks: — 

O'er  all  this  wild  magnificence, 

O'er  all  this  seeming  permanence, 

There  broods  a  feeling  of  suspense, 

As  if  the  silence,  though  unbroken, 

Contained — were  bursting  with — a  token 


THK   CITY   OF   IS 

Of  a  doom-word  to  bo  spoken; 
And  on  the  Stranger  will  obtrude 
The  feeling  that  a  multitude 
Is  moving  restlessly,  unviewed. 

Xear  the  center  of  the  town 
Is  a  gradual  sloping-down 
To  a  stone-environed  lake, 
Mist-laid,  dark,  and  still  as  death, 
So  still,  no  inner  stir,  no  breath 
Of  air,  it  seems,  could  ever  break 
Upon  the  raptness  of  its  dreams, 
Its  chill  oblivion  of  dreams. 

Let  the  Stranger  linger  there 
Upon  the  marble  landing-stair; 
Let  him  look  with  sense  and  soul — 
Let  him  see  the  incorporate  whole. 

Far  out  within  the  water-gloom 

There  stands  what  seems  a  tiling  of  doom- 

The  symbol  of  a  mighty  power — 

A  cloud-like,  sky-encircled  tower, 

A  place  of  solemn  sovereignty, 

Uplifting  like  another  Babel 


THK  CITY  OF  is 

Its  gray,  incongruous  mass, — unstable 
Seeming, — whispering  mystery 
And  sense  of  hidden  prophecy. 

A  strange  place  is  this  lonely  tower 
Keneath  which  all  else  seems  to  cower, 
Which,  seeming  ever  falling,  falls  not; 
This  place  where  silent,  felt  voice  dwells. 
Which,  seeming  ever  calling,  calls  not; 
This  place  with   Heaven  or  thousand  helb 
Within  its  deej)  tranquillity. 

Lo!  listen.  Stranger,  breathlessly, — 
What  is  that  heavenly  harmony — 
What  says  that  heavenly  harmony— 
What  say  those  tuneful  shadow! ngs 
From  love-lutes'  living  silver  strings — • 
What  say  those  potent  golden  notes, 
Like  vocal  notes  from  angels'  throats? 

Is!  Is!  I  fit  ill  if  n'l  Is! 

More  beautiful  seeming 
I  n  Hi  a  dec/I  dreaming 

Or  sH-oon.  it  may  l>c, 
Thou  <trt 


THE  CITY  OF  TS 

For  He,  the  Supernal, 

Hath  dwelling  in  theef 

Is!  Is!  beautiful  Is! 

Whilst  tliou  art  dreaming, 
Thy  vitals  are  teeming 
Wit /i  living  decay: 
Thy  breathing  is  sluicing. 
Time's  end  is  close  groiring. 
Thy  heart-beats  delay! 

The  space-pervading  sounds  expire. 

What  mean  the  variant  lute  and  lyre? 
What  means  this  pulsing  tremor  here, 
This  laboring  uneasiness. 
This  unite  though  evident  distress? 
Ah,  Is,  time's  cud  IK  growing  near!.  .  . 
Time's  end  is  here — is  here.   .  .  . 

The  mist  upon  the  moveless  lake 
Doth  in  a  wave-like  motion  wake, — 
]t  rolls  and  rises — spreads  and  swells.- 
lt  sweeps  amain, — it  all-includes 
The  architectural  solitudes; 


THE    CITY   OF   IS 

And  now, — '111  id  sound  of  distant  bells 
And  far-off  surges, — settles  down 
A  deepening  darkness  on  the  town. 

0  wildered  Stranger  standing  there 
Irpon  the  marble  landing-stair. 
In  vain  tliou  pecrest  through  this  night. 
In  vain,  for  Is  hath  vanished  quite, 
All-heavenly   Is  hath  vanished  quite: 
Steadfast,  fearless,  hopeful,  stand 
And  listen  to  the  whispering  surges 
And  the  bells  on  far-off  verges 
Of  the  mist-enveloped  land  : 
Possess  thy  wondering  soul  in  peace. 
And  wait,  and  wait;  but,  pray  thee,  cease 
To  peer  into  this  sightless  night, 
For  Is,  for  thee,  hath  vanished  quite. 
Celestial  Is  hath  vanished  quite: 
Possess  thy  wondering  soul  in  peace — 
And  wait. 


RICH  AS  THK  FALLING  OF  NIGHT 

l\ieh  as  the  falling  of  night — nay,  riehlier — 

Were  wafted  to  me  from  afar 
Glimpses  of  splendor,  of  mirth,  of  sweet  madne: 

As  if  through  a  door  ajar. 

Xow.  soft  as  the  coming  of  dawn — nay,  softlier- 

Hitlier  there  flows  from  afar 
A  token  of  love — ah,  me! — and  of  joy, 
As  if  through  a  heart  ajar. 


10 


SALOETHE  n 


Heavy-hearted,  still  as  death, 

(.hist  tranced  in  gloomy,  brooding  thought; 
In  secret,  almost  overwrought), 

Xiglit,  prophetic,  stays  her  breath 

Now,  anxiously,  for  to  her  saith, 
In  confirmation,  quite  unsought, 
A  voice  from  some  Familiar  caught : 

"Alas,  sad  Night,  thou  dupe  of  Death, 

Another  sorrow  followeth!" 
And,  too,  her  now  attentive  ear 
The  phantom  of  a  cry  doth  hear: 

"Saloethe!    Saloetkc! 

Drink  of  Lethe,  sweet-watered  Lethe. 
titlortlir!   Saloeihc! 

Oblivion — sin — drink,  of  Lethe — Lethe!" 


I'ncasy.  slowly  fevering,  Night 

Xo\v  casts  her  mantling  gloom  profound 
The  stately  mansion  thrice  around: 

Kye-fired  space  it  is,  despite 

The  casement's  tiny  taper-light, 


12  SALOKTHK 

Wh it-li    (too  slight  to  mii-h  the  ground) 
The  little  fitful  winds  have  found ; — 
It  flickers  at  its  lonely  height, — 
The  little  winds  have  clipped  it  quite! 
In  rustlings  soft,  the  unseen  trees 
Release  the  sad  soul  of  the  breeze: 

"Salocthe !  Salocthc ! 

Sorrow-haunted  Salocthc ! 
Salocthc!  Salocthe! 

Art  thou  coming,  Saloethc?" 


The  heated  winds  the  half-oped  door 

Have  caught  and  fiercely  inward  hurled: 
Xight  seeks  to  stay  HEK,  sorrow-whirled, 
Who  braves  the  crags  on  Being's  shore, 
1'nstartled  by  the  wild  storm's  roar — 
Hi;u,  desolate  and  misery-swirled. 
Who  dares  the  might  of  the  deep-stirred  world 
And  outward  presses.     (Ah,  heart  so  sore, 
('<inst  thou  this  awful  blast  explore? — 
Doubt  undeserved!  daredst  thou  not  sin — 
Insult  thyself  and  God  within?) 


S  A  LOUT  HI-: 


"Saloethe! 

Conic  —  conic  —  Safocth'e! 

Hen1'*  no  heartache,  here  by  Lcthc  — 
Come  —  come  —  Salocthc!" 


Outward  under  thund'rous  skies 
She  passes,  and  with  step  so  fleet 
A  daimon's  in  her  dainty  feet; 
And  by  the  lightning  one  descries 
A  dainion  in  her  large,  wild  eyes; 

The  wind-rage  wrests  with  wrathful  heat 
Her  dark  hair  from  its  graceful  seat; 
Cold  rain  its  vain  determent  tries, 
And  hail  the  gentler  rain  outvies; — 
Can  Xight  prevent  her,  if  the  whole 
Be  but  the  mirror  of  her  soul  ? 

"  Saloetlie !  Salocthc! 

Sorrow -sin  king!  sweet  is  Lethe. 
Salocthe!    Saloethe! 

Sorrow-sunken!  come  to  Lethe." 

5 

The  well-known,  neighboring  region  past, 
By  garden-walk,  familiar  road, 


|.  SALOETHE 

And  winding  path  through  sheer  abode 
Of  shadowy  things  with  movements  vast, 
(ihast.  spectral  in  the  lightninged  Mast, 
Breathless,  her  hastening  step  she  slowed 
(Heavily  pressed  her  worn  heart's  load); 
A  glance  up  toward  the  sky  she  cast- 
She  smiled — (in  splendor  unsurpassed 
Sly  Night  had  decked  herself) — a  wan. 
Sad.    glimmering    smile,   scarce   come,    win  n 
gone. 

"Saloeihc!     FaJoethc! 

All'.s  deceit  but  soothing  Lethe; 
Salo  etlic!   S  aloe  I  he  ! 

Direct  oblivion's  licre  by  Leilie." 


All,  foolish  Night!    Thy- hurst  of  light 
Could  not  the  heart's  dull  ac!u  abate; 
Thou  hast  the  last  and  unl'oi  nd  gate 
Disclosed  to  her  bewildered  sight- 
Tile  narrow  path  beyond — the  tli.ht 
Of  stone  stairs  which  doth  terminate 
Upon  a  rock,  where,  desolate 
Among  the  trees,  and  (lark,  ()  Xight. 


SALOKTHR  15 

As  thou  when  in  deep  glooms  bedight, 
But  by  stray  drops  of  rain  revealed, 
Beneath,  a  deep  pool  lies  concealed. 

"Saloethe!    Faloetlic! 

I  sigh  for  tliee,  sweet  SaloetJie! 
I  cry  for  thcc,  0  Saloctlie! 

Cnnic!    Come!    Conic  Jtnrn  1o  Lcilic." 


The  gate — the  path — the  short  descent — 
Shadow-like  upon  the  rock  : — 
Will  she  her  secret  heart  unlock? 

A  nettle  stung  her  as  she  went. 

And  wild-rose  thorns  the  wounds  augment; 
But  powerless  were  earthquake  shock 
To  wake  the  dormant   feeling.      (Knock 

Upon  her  heart.  ()  (Jod  !  prevent 

This  dec'd  ; — or  has  she  Thy  consent  ?) 
A  moonbeam  her  lithe  form  caresses — 
She  moves — throws  hack  her  tangled   tre 

' '  tfa  lo  elite !    tin  Jo  e  I  he ! 

Mi/  xiitl  soul'*  rri/in<j  ^nloei/ie! 
^dloetlie!     tfaloetlid- 

A  i/c  xoflli/  *i<./ltin</.  here  l>i/  Lei  lit1.'' 


1 6  SALOETHE 

8 

"My  heart's  heart,  here  I  am — poor  I ! 

He  asks  my  love — I  cannot  feign ; 

You  cold  in  death — could  I  remain? 
Woe,  woe !  my  guilty  heart  cloth  cry ! 
Where,  God,  wast  Thou?   Why  wast  not  nigh 

In  my  dire  need — when  so  in  vain 

I  strove  against  this  joy,  this  pain? 
I  thank  Thee,  none  on  me  rely 
For  aught.     For  you,  dear  heart, — I  die." 

A  plunge!,  .an  owl  hoots — here — then  there; 

And  Night  her  tears  can  not  forhear. 

/,  ih<>  Wind.  say.  S<iloetke, 

Is  there  sighing ,  by  street  Lethe — 

Is  there  crying,  ^aloethe? 

Where's  oblivion?     Where  is  Lethe? 


TO  AGE*  17 

All  honor  to  thee.  calm-eyed  Ago,  asoat 
Upon  the  throne-like  summit  of  a  life, 
With  folded  hands,  and  thoughtful  temples 

touched 

With  presage  of  a  more  than  earthly  glory, 
Lost  in  simple  wonder,  leaning  forward, 
Listening. 

Chaste  Initiate,  unto  thee, 
Baptized  by  life- tire  in  the  raging  cycle 
Of  the  senses — unto  thee,  before 
The  portal  of  a  grander  tabernacle — 
Earth  holds  out  her  jealous  arms  at  last 
For  thy  ennobled  tenement,  which,  though 
Translucent  to  an  alien  light  out  from 
The  world's  deep  heart,  she  claims  as  that  dull. 

formless 

StulT  she  gave;  and  thou,  thy  self  uncinct, 
Thy  wondrous  sympathies  all  unconstrained. 
Dost  think  deep  thoughts  of  immortality 
And  hold  thyself  in  passive  readiness. 
Nay,  dost — with  a  smile — await  the  term 
When  thou  shall  yield  thy  leasehold  up  and  take 
Thy  personal  effects  unto  that  statelier 
Mansion  which  is  thine  in  fee  and  from 
Whose  crystal  windows  thou  mayst  far  survey 
The  glory  and  the  grandeur  of  Hod's  Nature. 

*  Published  in  Overland  Monthly,  Jan..  1000. 


1 8  THK  TRIUMPH  OF  I.OYK 


We  walked  alone, 

And  the  World's  heart  throbbed  with  fever-heat; 
And  fever-specters  rose  on  their  feet 
And    troubled    the   night    with   their   groans   and 

sighs; 

And  the  weirdest  winds  that  ever  were  known 
Sat  in  the  trees  and  with  sol)  and  moan 
Grieved  with  the  weeping,  delirious  skies 
For  the  passing  of  that  which  they  idolixe — 
The  peace  and  the  beauty  they  idolixe: 
lint  what  to  me  were  sigh  and  groan  ? 
What  to  me  were  sob  and  moan, 
And  what  were  the  tears  of  the  maudlin  skies? 
For   the   whole   of   in;/   world   was   a   garden   em- 
pearled — 

A  Paradise  purpled  and  pearled 
By  the  light  of  Tola's  bright  eyes — 
The  glory  of  light  in  her  eyes. 

2 

We  walked  alone. 

And  calmer  the  pulse  of  the  World  had  grown  ; 
But  a  waning  moon  through  a  nebulous  rift 
Looked  down  with  an  envious  frown 


THK    TKH'MPH    OF    I.OVK  IQ 

And  Ihc  cowering  rocks  began  to  uplift 
Their  dull,  pallid  faces  and  sullenly  stare, 
On  seeing  the  night-like,  clustering  hair, 
The  classic  head  and  delicate  air 

Of  my  Love  and  the  splendor  that  stole 

So  easily  forth  from  her  soul— 

The    illumined    rich    throne-room,    her 

soul ; 

And  lola's  soft  heart  grew  sorrowful  then. 
Hut    (repressing    my    own    growing    feelings    of 

gloom ) 

1  told  her  how  common  it  is  among  men 
To  divy  and  hate  e'en  the  peerlessly  great, 

Yet  proclaim  him  a  god — in  the  tomb, 
And  prayed  her  be  hopeful  and  find  in  the  deed 
Or  the  clearness  of  conscience  the  genuine  meed; 
She  silently  wept,  but  after  a  while 
Looked  up  and  around  with  a  smile — 
A  lovely,  mysterious  smile — 
And  my  feelings  of  gloom  in  a  moment  gave  place 
To  an  inflowing  favor  of  grace — 
An  ecstatic  sweet  fullness  of  grace. 

3 

\Ye  walked  alone, 

And  quite  calm  the  pulse  of  the  World  had  grown; 


20  THJC    TK I  I'M  I'M    OF    I.OVK 

Though  a  prevalent  malice  did  poison  and  blight 
The  valley  a-eold  with  the  moon's  cold  light: 
Though  the  ogling  rocks — emboldened  by  spite — 
Endeavored  to  bar  our  way  through  the  night; 
Though  the  sap-sucking  ivy  long  creepers  down- 
threw 

And  tangled  us  tight  in  the  damps  where  it  grew; 
Though  flittering  things  did  others  pursue, 
And  fell  shapes  wander  or  lie  perdu; 
Though  henbanes  there  did  the  harebells  woo, 
And  violets  shrink  from  the  taint  of  the  rue; 
Though  the  bitterest  breezes  that  ever  blew 
Descended  and  shivered  through  and  through 
The  delicate,  fine-tempered,  exquisite  few. — 

That  entrancing  sweet  fullness  of  grace 

That  flowed  from  lola's  dear  face 
Soon  mystically — musically — 

Thrilled  through  the  soul  of  the  valley. 
Soon  musically — ecstal ically — 

Throbbed  in  the  heart  of  the  valley. 
Then  dim  lights  sauntered  aloft  toward  the  skies, 
And,  soft  like  the  rays  from  lola's  soft  eyes, 
Glimmered  with  presage  of  glory  like  theirs — 

Of  transfiguring  glory  like  theirs. — 
Glimmered, — but  now  in  gray  mantles  bedight, 


THE    TRIUMPH    OF    I.OVK  21 

And  iil led  with  swift  power  and  creative  delight, 
Gorgeously  frescoed  the  dark  dome  of  night; 
And  gentle  and  tremulous  warm  little  airs 

Arose  unawares 

And  silverly  sweetly  laughed  through  the  valley 
\Yhisperingly  low — harmonically 

With  tlu-  joy  in  the  heart  of  the  valley; 
And  through  //.s  laughed  the  fancies  of  love  that's 

requited. 

In  J/N  glowed  the  feelings  of  lovers  united, 
And  there  seemed  to  fall  o'er  us  and  How  on  he- 
fore  us 

A  perfume  whose  richness  grew  ever  intcnscr — 
The  largess  of  many  a  heavenly  censer — 
The  love-gift  of  many  a  spirit  there 
Afloat  in  the  radiant  air — 
Of  many  a  spirit  there 
Afloat  in  the  hallowed  air. 


22  AMERICA 

LAND  or  Tin:  NKW  AUK. 

O  land  of  the  palmetto  and  the  pine, 

Land  of  the  yucca,  cactus,  brake  and  sage. 

Of  llax  and  cotton,  wheat,  corn,  gold  and  wine, 
Thine,  thine  the' burden  of  tlr  oncoming  age — 

On  thee  the  Spirit  of  the  World  hath  set  His  sign! 

Land  of  the  mighty  reaches,  mingling  races, 
Foster-mother  of  the  nation  s' brood. 

Rare,  patient  mistress  of  the  civic  graces, 
Thine,  thine  the  sure  uplifting  of  the  rude, 

The  raising  of  the  lowly  pure  to  lofty  places. 

Land  of  heroic  men,  and  women  fair. 
Of  female  virtue  and  male  enterprise, 

Of  hearts  athirst  for  draughts  the  gods  prepare, 
Thine,  thine  the  promise  of  the  larger  skies 

And  all  the  high  activities  that  center  there. 

Land  of  the  national  spirit  like  the  sea, 
As  boundless,  free,  assimilative,  vast, 

A  new  age,  new  race,  take  their  rise  in  thee; 
Thine,  thine  the  fruitage  of  the  ages  past, 

The  blending  into  one  of  all  humanity. 

0  land  on  which  great  Cod  hath  set  His  sign, 
O  mighty  creature  of  the  higher  law, 

The  generation  of  the  liight  is  thine, 
Eternal  Justice  without   fleck  or  flaw — 

A  life  responsive  to  the  thrill  of  Life  Divine! 


THROUGH  THE  VAUJvY  OF  NIL 

i 
Life  smiled  on  the  lovely  Child 

And  led  him  with  delicate  linker-tips 

Into  the  Valley  of  Xil ; 
And  kissing  his  volutod  linker-lips, 
Quickened  his,  inchoate  Avill. 

2 
He  shrank  from  the  peopling  blank — 

Turned  back  toward  the  glittering  spangl 

Of  love-living  light  on  the  Hill 
Just  out  of  the  tortuous  tangles 
Of  the  solaric  Valley  of  Nil. 

3 

But  the  gradient,  paved  with  irradiant. 
Vacuous  violet  light. 

Had  shrunk  to  a  slender  rill 
Of  fluctuant  spirit,  to  the  sight 
()!'  the  Child  in  the  Valley  of  Nil. 

4 
Jle  trembled,  but  sweet  Life  dissembled, 

Assumed  in  soft  outlines  a  seeming 
Of  splendor  like  that  of  the  Hill. 

And  lulled  the  dear  Child  into  dreaming 
Of  it,  in  the  Valley  ol'  Nil. 

23 


24  THROUGH   THE   VALLEY   OF   NIL 

5 

He  awoke,  and  his  wild  eyes  bespoke 

That  his  spirit  was  drunken  with  wonder 

With  the  shadows  that  flitted  at  wiil 
He  allied  him,  and  nothing  should  sunder 
Him  now  From  the  Valley  of  Xil. 

6 

He  wandered,  and  ceaselessly  pondered 
The  alien  thoughts  and  new  feelings 

He  ever  encountered,  until 
The  swiftly  evolving  revealings 
Apotheosized  the  A'alley  of  .Nil. 

7 
Then  a  stream  like  a  fever-dream 

With  the  demiurgic  efflux  commingled: 

Oh.  alas,  if  its  turbidness  fill 

(Alas  for  this  Being  outsingled), 

If  it  fill  all  the  Valley  of  Nil! 

8 

But  he  saw  in  vague  limning  a  law 
Of  spiritual  chemistry  waiting 

To  cleanse  the  mad  stream  of  its  ill: 
It  seized  on  the  ill.  alienating 
It,  there  in  the  Valley  of  Xil. 


THROUGH   THE   VALLEY   OF  NIL  25 

9 

Separated  and  so  alienated. 
The  ill  was  a  mist,  organized. 

That  did  a  blind  madness  distill 
Intermittently  down,  undisguised, 
On  this  Soul  in  the  Valley  of  Nil. 

10 

And  he  grew  now  to  think  that  the  el ue 
To  this  tortuous,  wildering  maze. 

The  mayavie   Valley  of  Xil, 
Was  to  scatter  the  thickening  haze 
Of  the  ill  with  a  tempest  of  will. 

1 1 

Ye!  distilled  the  dark  mist,  as  it  willed, 
A   virulence  greater  than  ever: — 

Though  visions  arose  of  the  Mill. 
Alas,  could  it  he  they  could  never 
.He-transfigure  the  Valley  of  Xil? 

12 

Overcast  and  despairing,  lie  passed 
(Led  by  a  National  Doubt) 

To  denial  of  aught  of  the  Hill : 
Then  looked,  with  calm  glances,  throughout 
The  vast,  gamut ic  Yallev  of  Nil. 


26          THROUGH  THE  VAttfiV  OP  ML 

13 

His  glancing  set  gravity  dancing 
And   fixedness  furiously  spinning: 
An  interpreting,  spiritual  thrill 
Pervaded  all  tilings,  from  beginning 
To  end  of  the  Valley  of  Nil. 

14 

And  Leaning  then  toward  the.  meaning 
Of  ill  and  its  ultimate  trend 
(Catalytic,  equivocal  ill), 
Jn  half-glimpses  he  sa\v.  in  the  end. 
The  Hill,  from  the  Valley  of  Nil. 

15 
The  heightening  insight  was  brightening 

To  light,  when   Li IV — letting  sink  her  lip? 

Soft  on  his  forehead  still — 
Led  him  with  delicate  finger-tips 

Out  of  the  Vallev  of  Nil. 


CIVIL   ANGUISH*  27 

i 

With  solemn  intonation,  through  the  land 
Reverberates  tin1  saddening  noie  of  some 
Sublime  despair:  from  fretful  mnrmuringa 
Of  ill  impersonal,  it  rose  to  this. 

The  dec-})  heart-outbreak  of  pent-up,  waiting  an 
guish, 
When  hope  is  o'er,  when  hope  "s  no  more. 

The  very  fountainheads  of. forlorn  life 
Usurped — the  scanty  vitalizing  rills 
Shrunk  up  by  harpv-natured  arrogance 
Or  doled  out,  garbled,  poisoned  at  their  source. 
By  sleek  and  specious  opulence,  till  weakening 
Members  weaken  more  the  weakened  will; 
Till  humanhood,  disorganized,  forgets 
It  e'er  was  man  and  sinks  below  the  brute; 
Till  simple  life,  o'erburdened,  sorrow-whirled, 
Kind  death  blots  out  the  world; — 
The  very  fountainheads  of  forlorn  life 
Usurped  and  this  deep  anguish  in  the  land. 
How  shall  the  o'erborne  spirit  ever  shift 

*Written  in  1895,  and  being  a  characterization  of,  and  some 
reflections  upon,  affairs  in  the  United  States  in  that  terrible  year 
of  panic  and  ruin,  poverty  and  distress,  when  employers  were  most 
•elfish  and  employed  most  needy. 


28  CIVIL    ANGUISH 

The  weary  ln;ul  of  care,  assume  it*  true 

Supremacy,  t brill  with  vivifying 

Hope  the  apathetic  nerves  and  urge 

The  faint,  parched  life  up  to  its  lavish  sources 

Engrossed  thus  and  corrupted  ? 

(Jo  first  to  the  homes  of  the  yeomanry,  the  sinews 

And  sense  of  the  State,  tbe  source  of  the  civil 
health, 

Tbe  union  of  hand  and  brain,  the  primal  impinge 
ment 

Of  mind  on  the  matter-world:  tbe  sturdy  sons 

Of  God  who  glean,  in  their  own  right,  rich,  teem 
ing 

Nature's  free,  rife  bounties; — go  thither: — hag 
gard 

Poverty  leans  'ncath  tbe  lintel,  trying  to  think; 

And  corpulent  Mortgage,  in  passing,  complacently 
nods 

And  rubs  bis  fat  bands. 

Go  now  to  the  homes  of  those  who,  thews  of  an 
alien 

Brain,  fashion  for  others  the  unwrougbt  gleanings 

From  Nature,  and  tangle  their  heart-fibers  fast  in 
their  work; — 


CIVII,    ANGUISH  29 

Go  thither: — list  to  the  wasting  widow's  sob 

For  him  who,  at  the  hands  of  fellow-craftsmen 

Infuriated  to  a  fatal  madness 

'Xeath  the  grinding  heel  of  advancing  greed, 

Perished  at  the  post  he  could  not  leave 

And  live; 

Peer  now  through  the  chilly  gloom  at  her  wan. 

still  face 

And  staring  eyes,  as  she  looks  on  her  feeble  babes 
And    finds   their   pinched   cheeks   filled   with   the 

ichor 

And  curved  with  the  beauty-lines  of  life — 
Their  dull  eyes  bright  with  the  fire  of  noble  pur 
pose — 

Their  slowly-moving,  shrunken  limbs  alive 
With  the  ecstatic  fury  which  shall  touch 
And  vitalize  the  old,  cold  world; — 

While  the  fever  burns  her  rife  away, 
And  her  silent  babes  gaze  awestruck 
Into  her  tearless  eyes. 

The  boy — the  girl :  too  young,  too  tender-plastic, 

For  the  harried  mother's  holy  care 

To  have  shaped  in  them,  in  fixed  and  lasting  lines, 


30  CIVIL   ANGUISH 

The  lineaments  of  love — shall  lie  grow  wild, 
A  noxious  weed,  as  some  malign  padrone's 
Child? — shall  she  by  soft,  persuasive  lure 
Lapse  all  unconsciously  in  unsuspecting 
Maidenhood  to  woe  unutterable, 
Or,  spirit-stricken,  drop  doggedly  from  hideous 
Penury  to  the  soul-corrosive  horror 
Of  dark  harlotry? 

2 

At  this  despondent  time,  oh  could  the  State 
A  cherishing  mother  stand,  the  source  of  hope 
And  self-dependent  happiness! 

Ah,  half-divine  analogon  of  that 
Dim  God  who,  having  made  the  world,  remains 
Aloof  in  stern,  restrictive  might  alone, 
To  judge,  condemn  and  punish  what  his  cold 
Xeglect  creates,  take  to  thyself  thy  real 
Domain,  the  well-spring  of  thy  life;  permit 
Xo  private  seal  upon  those  sanctuaries 
Where  natural  potencies  await  the  mastering 
Spirit;  conserve  from  personal  caprice 
And  private  greed  the  alterable  or 
Destructible  factors  in  common,  all-embracing 
Benefits;  provide  the  necessary 


CIVIL  ANGUISH 

Means  for  general  needs  and  trust  the  best 

Accomplishment  to  virile  individual* 

Instinctively  obeying  natural  laws: 

IV  true  to  thyself  and  thine;  and  thou — now  a 

Benign  and  active  organism — wilt   find 

The  wisest  eager  in  thy  service  and 

Wilt  foster  as  thy  most  elect  and  earnest 

The  high,  creative  self-activities, 

Wbicb,  closely  federated,  will  make  of  thee 

A  true  Republic  of  Free  Spirits,  likening 

Thee  to  what  this  finite  mind  believes 

Hod  really  is — loving,  immanent 

And  eupereminent. 

\Yill  thou,  in  the  face  of  this,  thy  deep, 
Dynamical  ideal,  fall  from  each 
Kxalting  tendency — forget  the  living- 
Elements  whose  true  well-being's  thine — 
Impassively  abandon  to  ambitious 
Knaves  that  batten  on  the  neediness 
Of  honest  worth  the  springs  of  life  and  soul- 
Sustaining  hope — and  direr  still,  irill 
Thou.  Titan  of  the  many  million  minds, 
Yet  blindly  tolerate  that  deeper,  dread, 
Kvasive  and  persistent  ill — the  sad 


CIVIL    ANGUISH  32 

1  nconscioHS  shaping,  by  insimiative, 
Subtle  effluences  J'roni  the  daxxliii"1 

D 

Spedade  of  rc»nant  Selfishness, 

Of  those  in  whom  the  future  lies  embosomed 

And  involved? 


THE  MYSTIC. 

Deep  in  the  lonesome  watches  of  the  night, 

When  to  the  world's  far  margins  down  is  drawn 

With  loving  care  its  canopy  of  light, 
Within  my  soul  oft  witness  I  the  dawn 

Of  such  a  day  no  eye  could  hear  the  golden  sight. 

And,  too,  when  ravining  tempests  come,  rend  wide 

The  starry  canopy,  rush  howling  in 
And  roar  and  rage  aloft  from  side  to  side, 

Xot  e'en  the  deal  of  this  unholy  din 
Doth  with  my  blissful,  radiant  day  its  claims  di 
vide. 

0  would  that  when  false  pleasures  softly  lure 
With  cunning  semblance  of  my  high  delight, 

Or  when  black  malice  into  forms  impure 

Provokes  my  peace  with  its  corroding  blight — 

0  would  my  molten  golden  day  might  still  endure ! 

Soft,  silly  creatures  of  blind  circumstance, 
Did  we  but  will  it  with  a  constant  mind 

All  things  should  work  for  our  deliverance, 
The  -Light  within  no  obscuration  find, — 

Ourselves  as  gods  work  freely  in  the  World-ex 
panse! 

33 


Oil  A  STROLL  IX  A  GARDEN.  , 

SHE. 

(Moving  liyktly  and  happily  along  Hie  path). 
I  love  the  earnest  flowers, 

They  breathe  their  souls  out  to  me 
Ami  from  their  artless  beauty 
A  gentle  thrill  runs  through  me. 

HE. 

Dear  like  its  like  aye  liketh  well.     (Sighing) 
Ah,  Beauty  is  the  master-spell  ! 

SHE. 

In  this  bloomy,  perfumed  bower, 
This  natural  grouping  of  leaf  and  flower, 
I  hear  soft  lily-voices,  violet-sighs, 
And  I  read  a  wealth  of  meaning 
In  this  passion-flower's  wild  eyes. 

HE. 

Sweet  Interpreter,  thy  dark,  deep  eyes  are  cunning 

ears. 
(To  himself:)     Can  it  be  th'  exalted  sense  my  in 

most  feelin     hears? 


34 


INTERPRETATION  35 

SHE. 

What  faith  hath  yonder  struggling  smilax, 
Clinging  to  those  dying  lilacs! 
How  doth  a  steadfast  faith  upbear 
Yon  ivy  on  the  stone  wall  there ! 

HE. 

(Almost  involuntarily,,  as  lie  leans  upon  a  garden 
11  rn.) 

I  crave  a  most  full,  heart-whole  faith  : 
It  were  as  if  I  quaffed  the  world-wine 
And  made  the  spirit  of  the  world  mine, 
And  so  inspirited,  did  look  about  me 
And  recognize  the  world  within  without  me! 

SI  IK. 

This  morning-glory's  opening  cup 
Doth  say:    "The  light  of  love  is  up, 
When  thou  dost  feel  thy  heart  enlarge 
And  warmer  life  its  depths  surcharge !" 

HE. 

Some  deep  source  feeds  this  frail,  symbolic  cup. 
(Half -audibly:)     Ah  me!   the  light  of  love  hath 
long  been  up. 


36  INTERPRETATION 

SHE. 

(As  they  approach  a  dried-up  fountain  overgrown 

with  vines} 

That  delicate  vine — the  simple-sweet — 
Which,  from  her  pretty,  unlaved  feet, 
Doth  there  entwine,  with  perfume  laden, 
The  form  of  the  marble  fountain-maiden, 
Doth  softly  say :    "My  love  will  shield  thee 
From  all  the  blows  that  the  years  can  yield  thee." 

HE. 

Intangible  love  has  the  power  of  a  soul, 
And  tempers  soul  to  a  spirit-whole 
In  which  the  most  caustic  vicissitudes  pass 
As  inert  as  fire  in  a  mirror-glass. 

(Only  just  audibly  and  confusedly:) 
But  the  tempering,  dear,,  can  7 — ah,  can  one  en 
dure  it? 
Though  reason  reveals  it,  I,  dearest,  renoiince  and 

abjure  it — 
I  know  but  a  sweet  fascination,  a  vacant  despair — 

SITE. 

(Archly) 

Yon  tiger-lilies'  splendor  there, 
Those  dahlias'  self-sufficient  air, 


INTERPRETATION  37 

Bemock  the  genuine  beauty  of  yon  rose 

And  cheat  the  credulous  air  with  surface-shows, 

HE. 

(Seriously) 

What  's  of  the  surface  integrally 
Is  of  the  center  mystically : 
The  spoken  word  is  spirit. 

SHE. 

(On  IJifir  entering  the,  conservatory) 
And  here,  too  frail  for  the  sun's  hare  sight, 
The  Holy  Ghost  Flower,  fainting  quite 
In  the  radiant  flood  of  her  own  rare  light, 
Doth  say,  underhreath,  to  the  dove  in  her  heart: 
"Who  is  so  true,  love,  and  pure  as  thou  art? 
Though  I  swoon  in  the  excess  of  love,  T  will  hold 

thee 

Forever  here  in  my  heart, 
Forever  in  ecstasy  here  will  enfold  thec!" 

HE. 

Sweet  Psychologist,  from  flower-soul. 
Oh,  turn. — interpret  my  sad  human  heart: 
It  is-a  scroll 

Which  none  hut  thec  can  read — thou,  dearest,  art 
Therefore  its  most  meet  guardian; — it  is  thine — 
Translate  thy  own  to  me,  and  make  it  mine! 


234873 


38  MAN'S  PROPER  ELEMENT. 

Man's  proper  element  is  men  awake, 

Alive  and  giving  life  to  thoughts  and  things, 

Enthusiastic,  throwing — for  the  sake 

Of  shaping  true  their  deep  imaginings — 

Their  very  souls  into  the  tasks  they  undertake. 

Life's  not  the  playtime  of  a  thoughtless  child: 
Its  worth  is  measured  by  the  insights  gain-ed; 

The  wisdom  of  the  larger  grasp;  the  mild, 
Free  power  from  some  worthy  end-attained ; 

The  inner  wealth  from  minutes  full  and  well  be- 
guiled. 

And,  truly,  he  with  vain,  conceited  pride 
And  he  who  shuns  with  scorn  the  vital  ways 

Are  fellow-travelers  without  a  guide 

Upon  a  plain  whose  barren  face  betrays 

A  lack  no  knowing  eye  could  view  unterrified. 

Till  we  can  stand  the  Light — and  not  till  then — 
The  Light  that  sets  us  from  our  self-love  free, 

We  see  but  shadows  as  in  Plato's  den  : 
A  man's  most  perfect  function  is  to  be 

A  source  of  inspiration  to  his  f(  llowmen. 


THE  DEMON.  39 

1. 

One  night  (the  night 
Most  deliriously  bright, 
The  gnomon  that  measures 
The  limit  of  pleasures). 
Again  by  the  lake 
Where  our  spirits  first  spake, 
But  a  few  hours  before, 
Of  the  love  that  they  bore, 
I  walked  as  one  seems 
To  walk  in  his  dreams, 
Palpably  nought 
But  the  potence  of  thought, 
Though  alive  to  the  slightest 
Detail  and  the  lightest 
Sense-thrill  of  mild  power 
Of  that  memorable  hour. 

9 

Still  was  the  night, 
Yet  breathless  quite 
From  the  spell  si  IK  had  easi 
Over  all,  as  we  passed 
In  the  dreamy  eve-light, 


40  THE   DEMON 


In  a  fluttering  flight 
Of  mute  love,  from  the  manse, 
Through  the  gloomy  expanse 
Of  the  park,  to  the  edge 
Of  the  lake,  to  the  path 
Throng!)  the  grasses  and  sedge 
On  the  edge  of  the  lake, 
And  uttered  I  know  not 
What  Tiuitual  lavishment 
(In  words  that  will  flow  not 
Again)  of  dear  love — 
In  a  heavenly  trance — 
Of  dear  love  like  the  love 
That  comes  down  from  ahove; 
And  then  in  sweet  ravishment 
Back  to  the  manse. 

3. 

Quiet  the  lake 
Lay  (her  little  lake), 
Silent  for  sake 
Of  the  love  it  could  tell  not. 
For  sake  of  the  love 
It  could  tell  not,  could  tell  not, 
In  fatefully  facile 
Soft  words,  as  were  mine ; 


THE   DEMON  41 

But  its  surface  was  lit 
With,  a  certain  soft  glow 
Transfiguring  it — 
And  thus  did  it  show 
What  it  never  could  tell 
In  words  that  should  well 
Out  so  freely  as  mine. 
In  words  that  should  flow 
Forth  so  smoothly  as  mine. 

4. 

Each  bowery  cove 
And  each  headland's  dark  grove 
Had  least  of  the  light 
Of  that  radiant  night. 
Yet  here  I  could  note, 
By  the  shadowy  shore, 
Some  lilies  afloat, 
And  some  tree-tops  there 
Dissolving  in  air 
Or  sprinkled  white 
With  a  liquor  of  light; 
And  so  limpid  and  rare, 
So  pellucid,  the  air, 
The  stars  in  their  darkling 
Purlieus  were  so  sparkling 


42  THE    DKMON 


They  appeared  all  liquescent, 

Madly  liquescent, 

And  the  silver  moon-crescent 

(Though  ecstatic  refulgence, 

As  if  from  indulgence 

In  raptures  divine 

And  all-holy  like  mine, 

So  intensely  ensouled  her 

The  sky  could  scarce  hold  her), 

The  melting  moon-crescent, 

I  saw  was  pursued 

By  a  DEMOX  endued 

With  desire  but  to  quench  her 

Soul-fire  and  to  wrench  her 

Perforce  from  the  sky, 

Down  out  of  the  sky, — 

A  shadowy  demon 

Bane  to  the  eye 

Of  the  credulous  seaman. 

5. 

Oh,  why,  why  that  shrinking, 
Instinctive  deep  shrinking 
Of  spirit,  on  thinking 
Of  fancy  like  that, 
Of  trifle  like  that 


THE   DEMON  43 

Of  that  moon  and  the  demon 
Feared  by  the  seaman? 

6. 

Ah,  well,  too  well, 
Did  my  memory  tell ! 
Ah,  well,  too  well, 
Does  my  memory  tell ! 
I,  indeed,  might  have  known, 
Before  seeking  HER  love, 
That  never  alone 
Was  to  come  from  above, 
To  me,  from  above, 
The  Spirit  of  Beauty, 
The  Spirit  of  Love, 
The  Spirit  of  Beauty 
And  heavenly  Love. 

7. 

In  early  youth 
That,  alas,  was  youth 
But  in  name,  and,  in  truth, 
Was  a  maelstrom  of  thought, 
One  day,  overwrought 
By  long  and  deep  pondering, 
Listlessly  wandering. 
Thoughtless  and  weary, 


44  'I'HK    DKMON 


Out  in  the  hills, 

I  entered  the  dreary 

Thick  woods  where  the  rills 

Slidder  down 

In  a  series  of  shocks, 

Musical  shocks, 

Through  dark  recesses 

In  the  mother-rocks, 

And  slip  through  the  cresses, 

Which  curtsy  and  quiver, 

Perhaps  to  the  river 

Down  by  the  town. 

In  the  gloom  of  that  place 

And  its  dark  counterpart, 

The  gloom  of  my  heart, 

There  arose  —  ah,  her  grace, 

Her  glory  of  face 

And  the  poise  of  her  form  ! 

How  lovingly  warm, 

How  subtly  alluring, 

Intense  and  enduring! 

"0  Spirit,"  I  cried, 

"Be  my  bride,  be  my  bride  ! 

And  the  sad  realms  of  thought 

I  will  leave  to  be  sought 


THK    DKMON  45 

But  by  those  that  can  find 
All  beauty  in  mind." 

8. 

Her  sweet  interference 
There  in  my  gloom, 
Her  very  appearance, 
In  roseate  bloom, 
Jn  my  hermetic  gloom, 
Was  warrant  that  she — 
Ah,  was  only  for  me! 

9. 

But,  melancholy 
Me !    0  Folly, 
Folly,  why. 
Why  mortify 
Me  thus — entreating 
And  sadly  repeating 
"0  Spirit  of  Woe! 
Tell  me  not  so, 
That  than  art  the  maiden 
With  love  overladen, 
Endowed  with  a  beauty 
It  were  paramount  duty 
To  aspire  to — adore — 
And  peril  all  for !" 


THE    DEMON 
10. 

But,  too  true,  too  true ! 
A  Circean  spell 
In  possession  cloth  dwell : — 
This  spirit  perdue 
Had  lain — this  shade 
Of  satiety  made — 
77m  inadequate  creature 
Of  imperfect  feature — 
Beneath  the  rare 
And  faultlessly  fail- 
First  ravishing  sight 
Of  that  creature  of  light. 

11. 

Then  should  /  not  have  known 
That  never  alone 
Came  to  me  from  above, 
The  Spirit  of  Beauty, 
The  Spirit  of  Love, 
The  Spirit  of  Beauty 
And  heavenly  Love? 

In  a  subsequent  year, 
When  greater  my  sphere, 


THE   DEMON  47 

Less  passion-whirled 

And  more  of  the  world, 

A  seraphic  soul, 

Xigh  merged  in  the  Whole, 

Came  to  incline 

Chastely  to  mine. 

I  saw  in  her  eyes 

The  rational  skies ; 

And  her  every  word 

My  spirit  stirred 

To  depths  unknown 

When  I  groped  alone: 

I  felt  all  the  glory 

And  grandeur  of  story ; 

The  great  world  was  greater; 

And  He,  the  Creator, 

I  well  knew  to  be 

Ever-present  in  me — 

I  was  my  maker 

And  kindred  partaker 

In  Him  who  created  me 

Maker,  instated   me 

Monarch  of  self, 

Disposer  of  self, 

In  Him,  the  container, 


48  THE   DEMON 

Sustainer,  restrainer, 
The  corrector,  pcrfector. 
"0  beloved/'  I  cried, 
"Be  my  bride,  be  my  bride ! 
I  see  now  the  meaning 
Of  life — 'tis  the  gleaning 
Of  culture  (the  essence 
And  true  coalescence 
Of  feeling  and  thought)  — 
The  gleaning  of  culture — 
The  soul  being  brought 
From  touch  with  the  sod 
To  communion  wit1    God. 

0  beloved — my  bride — 
With  thee  by  my  side 
To  interpret,  control 

My  conscience,  ni}-  soul .... 

1  cannot  speak 

The  feelings  that  come! 
But  why  should  I  seek 
To  be  other  than  dumb 
When  I  certainly  know 
That  my  meaning  will  flow 
To  completion,  in  thce? 
Oh,  there's  nothing  for  me, 


THE    DEMON  49 

Revered  one,  I  find, 
But  beauty  of  mind!" 

13. 

But,  melancholy 
Me!    0  Folly, 
Folly,  why. 
Why  mortify 
Me  thus — entreating 
And  sadly  repeating, 
"0  Spirit  of  Woe! 
Tell  me  not  so. 
That  iliou  art  the  maiden 
With  love  chastely  laden, 
Endowed  with  a  beauty, 
Intellectual  beauty, 
It  were  paramount  duty 
To  aspire  to — adore — 
And  peril  all  for!" 

14. 

But,  a  Circean  spell 
In  possession  doth  dwell; 
And,  alas,  in  despite 
Of  the  draught  I  had  quaffed 
From  the  Fountain  of  Light, 
Sun-blind  grew  my  sight, 


5O  THE   DEMON 


For  I  searched  her  hlue  eyes, 

And,  all.  where  were  their  skies, 

Their  rational  skies? — 

Her  lack-lustre  eyes. 

Homogeneous  thought 

Left  nought  to  be  sought, 

And  my  soul  never  stirred 

As  hcfore,  at  a  word; 

So,  palled,  and  hereft 

Of  my  love,  what  was  left  ? 

15. 

Then  should  7  not  have  known 
That  never  alone 
Came  to  me  from  above, 
The  Spirit  of  Beauty, 
The  Spirit  of  Love, 
The  Spirit  of  Beauty 
And  heavenly  Love? 

16. 

But  the  shrinking  on  thinking 
Of  fancy  like  that, 
Of  trifle  like  that, 
Of  the  moon  and  the  demon, 
The  dear  moon  and  the  demon 
That  night  by  the  lake 


THK    DKMON  5! 

Wlicro  our  spirits  first  spake 
Of  thc-ir  love — ay,  love? 
A  dark  premonition 
Was,  sans  my  volition, 
Sans  even  my  thinking, 
Jndissolultly  linking 
My  soul  to  the  soul, 
The  virulent  soul, 
Of  the  demon, 
The  pitiless  demon! 

17. 

I  hardly  am  equal 
To  telling  the  sequel — 
T  droop  neath  the  weight 
Of  my  fate,  of  HER  fate : 
For  the  demon.  . .  .the  demon.  . .  . 

Was /  was  the  demon .... 

It  was  7  who  pursued.  . .  . 
/,  the  demon  endued 
With  desire  to  quench  her 
Soul-fire  and  wrench  her, 
My  Love,  from  her  sky, 
Down  out  of  her  sky 
Of  perfection, — 'twas  I, 
Yes,  I,  unwilling 


52  THK    DEMON 

Yet  forced  to,  fulfilling 
A  law  of  my  nature, — 
What  certainly  seemed  — 
What  I  sadly  misdeemed — 
A  law  of  my  nature, 
That  the  high  legislature 
Of  love  could  annul  not, 
And  God  even  cull  not 
Clean  from  the  code 
And  not  wholly  confound 
And  raze  to  the  ground 
The  rule  He  bestowed. 

18. 

0  melancholy 
Me!     0  Folly, 
Folly,  why, 
Why  mortify 
Me  so — entreating, 
Sadly  entreating: 
"0  Spirit  of  Woe ! 
Say  where  is  the  maiden 
With  celestial  love  laden 
(With  pain  overladen), 
Endowed  with  a  beauty, 
Inexpressible  beauty, 


THE  DEMON  53 

It  were  paramount  duty 
To  aspire  to — adore — 
And  peril  all  for!" 

ID. 

Dark  Spirit  of  Woe, 
Wilt  thou  never  forego 
Thy  false  disillusioning, 
Mortal  confusioning, 
Never  cease  to  pursue  me, 
Thwart  and  undo  me? 

20. 

But  why  do  I  ask, 
So  needlessly  ask? 
I  who  have  passed 
By  degrees  to  the  last 

(The  uttermost)  station, 

The  full  consummation, 

Of  pain — the  pain 

Of  a  heart  that  hath  lain 

On  the  hosom  of  love, 

Sweet,  innocent  love, 

And  yet  (through  a  flaw 

In  the  intimate  law 

Of  its  nature),  self-cursed, 
But  oYrcome  and  coerced, 


54  1'HU    DEMON* 


Jlath  cruelly  stricken 
And  blighted  the  tender, 
Dear  soul  it  would  render 
Up  Heaven,  to  quicken  ! 

21. 

My  life  is  a  cloud 
And  this  body  a  shroud, 
Though  I  still  feel  the  lurking, 
Loth  heart's  labored  working, 
As  the  slow  blood  would  fain 
Iielieve  the  poor  brain 
And  stay  the  creation, 
Painful,  unsought, 
The  sad  fabrication 
Of  feeling  and  thought, 
That  I  might  lie  down, 
Quietly  down, 
On  the  shore  of  the  lake 
Where  our  spirits  first  spake 
Of  their  love — lie  down, 
Lie  down  in  the  gloom, 
Alone  in  the  gloom 
Of  the  tomb- 
Away  from  the  laugh, 
The  chattter  and  laugh 


THE   DEMON  55 

Of  the  bigots  who  doubt 
Absolution  from  stain 
By  baptism  of  pain — 
Lie  at  rest  in  the  gloom, 
The  remedial  gloom 
Of  the  peacefulest  tomb, 
The  tomb  without 
An  epitaph. 


OH,  THE  FREE  AIR'S  THE  MAXSIOX  TO 
LIVE    IN"! 


1. 


The  glint  of  the  southerly  sun  on  the  hi  ados 
Of  the  rank,  fresh  grass,  of  the  year's  new  life; 
The  lines,  through  these  leafless  trees,  of  light 
On  the  limbs,  with  a  setting  of  shadow-jet, 
And  the  myriad  splashes  of  mollient  flame 
Through  flint  smooth-faced  perennial  foliage; 
The  dreamy  blue  of  the  sky  through  the  lacy 
And  complicate  canopied  frowze  of  this  tree, 
And  the  jagged  and  involute  plat  on  the  blue. 
Of  the  cameo-clear  and  intricate  outline 
Of  that  tree;  the  dark-green  and  light-green  and 

garth-brown 

And  shadow  below — with  a  mottling  of  red-brown 
And  umber  and  silver  and  gray  and  a  hint 
Of   dark  purple — and   the  hue  of  the  sky-dome 

above ; 

The  sight  of  the  various  leaf-shapes  and  plant- 
shapes 

That  spring  from  a  common  soil : 
The  flight  of  the  small  birds  and  butterflies; 
The  masterful  poise  of  the  hawk  in  the  zenith  ; 

56 


OH,  THK  FREE  AIR*S  THE  MANSION  To  LIVE  IN 

The  beauty-lines  of  the  crests  of  the  hills — 
The  melodious  flowing  of  curve  upon  curve 
Along  and  adown  and  across,  with  the  mild 
Sensation  and  pique,  for  the  nonce,  at  the  sharp 
Interruption  of  fire-cracked  or  stratified  rocks, 
Which  a  further  and  deeper  reflection  interprets 
And  feels  as  the  checks  that  make  melody  harmony. 
As  the  discord  that  heightens  sweet  sameness  out 

there 

To  arouse  and  partake  of  the  spirit's  activity 
Here,  for  harmony  holds  from  the  spirit; 
The  suggestion  of  God  in  the  far-sweeping  dis 
tances  ; 

The  finding  of  freedom  within  and  the  fixing 
Of  faith  in  the  infinite  reaches  of  spirit: — 

Here's  no  stifling  constraint  of  the  feelings, 

\o  leveling  down  to  alikeness. 

Oli,  the  free  air's  the  mansion  to  lice  in! 

2. 

The  sound  of  the  hastening  rill  down  there 
In  the  little  ravine; 
The  hum  of  the  insect : 
The  song  of  the  bird  ; 
The  bark  of  the  squirrel ; 
57 


Ott,  THE  FRUP:  AIR'S  THE  MANSION  TO  LIVE 


The  many  uncertain,  mysterious  sifflings 

Of  sound  from  the  depth  of  the  tree,  the  cleft 

Of  the  rock  and  the  midst  of  the  weed-clump  :  — 

They  tell  not  of  weariness,  heartache  or  woe; 

Their  burden's  not  malice  nor  spite  nor  con 
ceit. 

Oil,  the  free  air's  the  mansion  to  live  in! 

3. 

The  tingling,  magnetic,  cool  feel  of  the  earth 
And  the  sprinkling  of  sap-dew  lingering  still 
On  the  veins  of  the  unshaken  leaflets  :  — 

Here's  no  clammy,  dead  hand  of  deceit, 

No  feverish  gripe  of  a  fiend. 

Oli,  the  free  air's  the  mansion  to  live  in! 

4. 

The  taste,  as  if  every  skin-pore  had  a  tongue, 
And  the  smell,  as  if  function  were  ended  in  smell 

ing, 

Of  a  vaporized  liquor  of  life  — 
Of  a  sweet  and  ethereal  essence  of  life  — 
Till  the  vitalized  being  dilates  to  the  point 
Where  ecstasy  turns  into  tears  — 
Where  the  rich,  iridescent  film-figures  of  fancy 
Flash  into  tears:  — 

58 


OH,  THE  FREE  AIR'S  THE  MANSION  TO  LIVE  IN 

Here's  no  tang  of  a  sympathy,  hollow,  half 
hearted  ; 

No  memorial  sad  odor  of  roses,  no  token 
Of  roses  now  faded,  no  token  of  vows 
That  are  hroken,  of  love  that's  departed. 
Oh,  Hie  free  air's  the  mansion  to  live  in! 


59 


THE  WATCHEU. 

0  Arlim.  arise  !  arise  ! 
The  air  with  an  attar-like  odor  is  teeming, 

Mild  night-light  comes  down  from  the  skies, 
Soft  love-light  that  vies  with  the  light  of  thy  eyes. 

The  light  of  love  in  thy  eyes : 

Pale  starlight  comes  down,  scarce  seeming 

To  fall,  ere  it  faints,  ere  it  dies, 
Tn  the  opal  in-?  moonlight  silvering,  creaming, 
The  garden  and  marhle  fount,  where  it  lies. 

0  Arline,  arise!  I  implore. 
The  Planet  of  Love  's  in  the  arms  of  the  Moon 

('Tis  the  night  of  all  nights  in  the  year — 

Tis  the  palmary  night  of  the  year), 
The  sweet  garden  flowers  are  lolling  aswoon 
And    the    warm    airs   are   kissing   the   ones   they 

adore; — 

Oh,  drive  away  Sleep  from  each  frail,  silken  lid, 
Pitiless  Sleep,  from  each  tyrannized  lid 

(From  my  thirsting,  sad  soul  I  implore!) 
And  full  to  these  tantalized  purlieus  restore 
With  thy  presence,  Euterpe,  the  melody  hid 

I'  the  hearts  of. the  trees  and  the  flowers; 
60 


THE    WATCHER  6 1 

With  the  charm  of  thy  presence  bring  potence  once 

more 
To  the  pain-lulling,  lyrical,  lovely  Night-Hours! 

Sweet,  here  where  the  radiant  wealth  of  the  night 
Illumines  as  if  with  an  inward  light 
The  form  of  the  marble  fountain-maiden, 
And  the  wealth  of  the  garden,  perfume-laden, 

I'e.-ponds  to  the  fountain's  sonody, 

Nods  to  the  murmuring  monody, 

Till  all  is  in  sympathy  quite 
(For  the  maiden  mourns,  I  know,  for  her  lover, 
And    over    nuj    heart    soft,    sweetly-Bad    unisons 
hover) ; 

Here,  where  the  elfin  shadows  crouch 
And  hide  in  the  grass  or  sit  on  the  leaves 
Or,  softer  than  any  wind  that  blows, 
Kiss  the  rich  cheek  of  a  regal  rose, 
I'll  make  thee  a  couch — the  daintiest  conch; 

Here,  where  the  delicate  vine  interweaves 
In  her  arms  the  loveliest  lily-bell 
That  ever  hath  listened  to  all  the  woes 
That  a  delicate  vine  can  tell, 


62  THE   WATCHER 

I'll  make  thee  a  couch — ah,  the  queenliest  couch, — 
Out  of  flowers  each  breathing  her  soul  out  for  thee, 
Out  of  violets  sighing  and  dying  for  thee; 

And  here  thou  wilt  stay  till  the  love-star  goes; 

And  the  light  on  thy  clustering  hair, 

The  light  on  thy  forehead  fair, 
The  smile  on  thy  lips,  the  light  in  thy  eyes, 
The  joy  in  my  heart,  shall  declare  that  he  lies 

Who  with.  tlifit  a  .s7o»r  bell  tolls 

And  on  Ike  itiylil  a  knell  rolls. 

Sweet,  here  where  the  Spirit  of  Love 

Hath  woven  the  world  in  a  spell, 
TTatli  brought  down  ethereal  threads  from  above 

And  woven  the  world  in  a  spell, 
Here  will  the  heavenly  visions  of  night 

Arise  from  the  soul,  where  they  dwell, 
And,  leading  us  on  from  delight  to  delight, 
Make  us  one — ay,  one ! — by  a  marvelous  spell  , 

Far  out  of  the  confines  of  night, 
Far  out  of  this  very  inadequate  world, 

Far  out  of  this  maladjust  world — 

Whflrc,  no  l)dl  tolls 

And  on  mi/  licnri  its  knrtl  rolls. 


*fHK  WATCHER  63 

Ah,  cloud  o'er  the  moon ! 
So  soon,  so  soon, 
Dost  tho-u  wake  me 
To  worldlinesB;  make  me 
Alive  to  my  bitterest  woe  ? 

Ah,  cloud  o'er  the  moon  ! 
Too  soon,  too  soon. 
Dost  thou  wake  me 
And  make  me 

Alive  to  unutterable  woe. 

But  how  could  I  sleep 

And  leave  them  to  keep 

Watch  o'er  my  dead — 

Them  only,  who  kept  her — 
Who  from  damnable  pride— 
Kept  her  from  me,  till  she  died  ! 

Lo,  the  purple  pane  ! 

The  lamp — the  purple  pane! 

Oh,  mockery  of  my  woe ! 

'Come,  sheet y  cloud, 

This  cold,  proud  world  enshroud; 

For  all  is  dead, 

All  virtue  here  hath  vanished : — 


64  THE  WATCHER 

All,  I  could  weep  no  tear,  no  tear, 

Upon  von  virgin  bier — 

Xo  burning  tear, — 

Upon  the  burthen  of  yon  bier ! 


SOUL-BLINDXESS.  65 

Abysmal  deeps,  engulf  me. 
And  hidden  currents,  whirl 
What's  worst  of  me  to  doubly 
Dire  perdition ! 

There's  little 
Left  in  me  of  that 
Divine  pure  fire  which  solves 
And  unifies  in  one 
Essential  spirit-whole 
The  actual  passing  life 
And  the  energizing,  full, 
Complete  ideal,  sublime 
And  archetypal. 

If  conscience, 
Then,  be  leaving  me, 
Be  quitting  now,  when  most 
In  need, — 0  weak,  unstable 
Me! — 0  perjured  me!  - 
There's  wreck  in  the  moral  world, 
And  Antichrist  is  king: ! 


66  EXCESS.* 

Bury  me  deep  in  a  grave,  oh, 
And  cover  it  over  with  snow,  oh, 

For — a  ha,  ha,  ha,  and  a  ho,  ho,  ho,- 
This  is  too  merry  a  world,  oh! 

Carry  me  up  on  a  cliff,  oh, 
And  oft'  of  it  heartily  throw,  oh, 

For — a  ha,  ha,  lia,  and  a  ho,  ho,  ho,- 
This  is  too  jolly  a  life,  oh  ! 

Prop  me  into  the  sea,  oh, 
And  religiously  let  me  he,  oh, 

For — a  ha,  ha,  ha,  and  a  ho,  ho,  ho,- 
I  am  too  happy  entirely,  oh  ! 

Build  me  a  funeral  pyre,  oh, 
And  burn  me  up  in  the  fire,  oh, 

For — a  ha,  ha,  ha,  and  a  ho,  ho,  lio,- 
This  glee  will  he  fatal  to  me,  oh ! 

*  Song  from  an  unpublished  romance. 


LOYE-SOXNET.  67 

When  angry  thought-floods  seethe  within  my  mind, 
Thy  presence,  Cara,  always  is  to  me 
An  oil  (of  roses)  on  this  raging  sea; 

Thy  voice,  the  wild-hirds'  warbling,  soul-refined, 

Or  soft,  melodious  psalm  borne  by  the  wind, 
In  soothing  accents  breathes  sweet  sympathy ; 
Thy  touch,  thy  glance, — ah,  every  jot  of  thee — 

Is  some  glad,  bowered  avenue,  flower-lined, 
Down  to  the  genuine  heart  I  so  adore ; 

And,  as  a  phosphorescent  sea  when  blows 

A  lively  breeze  from  some  night-covered  shore, 

Thy  face  now  glows  with  quiet  smiles,  now  shows 
An  inner  nature  strangely  vague  and  deep, 
Where  prophecy  and  intuition  sleep. 


THE  DAWX  OF  HOPE. 


*  *  *  To  the  unfortunate  self-seeking  and  fate- 
bound  person,  the  thought  that  the  more  fortunate,  who 
seem  to  have  reached  their  attainments  or  possessions 
without  effort,  may  also  have  limitations,  woes  and 
despairs,  comes  sometimes  as  a  ray  of  hope  indicating 
undreamt-of  possibilities  and  railing  forth  from  him  a 
free  endeavor  to  rise  out  of  his  present  enthralment. 

1. 

In  the  shadows  of  time  was  a  sea, 
A  symbolic,  beryl  line  sea. 

Where  mist-phantomed  crags  jutted  o'er 

Populous  stretches  of  shore 
That  were  thick-peopled  reaches  of  care, 
For  sodden-eyed  Poverty  there 
Looked  up  with  a  self-seeking  prayer, 
Looked  down  and  around  in  despair, 

And,  as  ever,  its  own  burden  bore. 


2. 


Yet^tlic  people,  uplifted  at  times, 
Heard  mellifluous,  mystical  chimes, 

\Yhich  updoated  airily  free 

From  the  cavernous  cliffs  by  that  sea; 


THE    DAWN    OF    HOPE  69 

But  the  sweetly  fantastical  tones 
Found  a  sad  contrast  in  the  moans, 
Found  a  sore  contrast  in  the  groans, 
From  the  low-lvinff  shore  of  the  sea. 


3. 


They  were  mimes,  unceasingly  mumbling 
And  sullenly  muttering  and  grumbling, 
Who  kept  rolling  the  mellow-toned  notes 
From  the  great  hells'  eloquent  throats; 
But  their  muttering,  down-sweeping  where  wells 
The  dull-sounding  moan,  the  sound  swells, — 
While  the  sonorous  wealth  of  the  hells 
Like  a  seraphic  choral  o'erfloats. 

4. 

Still  the  shore-dwellers  oft  heard  the  sound 
0  f  the  hells,  as  they  went  the  old  round 
Of  the  burdens  before  which  the}-  quailed, 
Of  the  life  they  so  sorely  bewailed; 
And  they  heard,  too,  back  of  the  chimes, 
The  sullen  complaint  of  the  mimes 
And  bethought  them,  at  hyaline  times, 
tt  was  some  like  themselves  that  bewailed. 


JO  THE    DAWN    OF    HOPE 

5. 

Such  thought  in  this  Fate-governed  place 
\Vas  a  ray  from  the  deific  grace; 

And,  in  time,  to  this  sad  people's  eyes 
llo])c  opened  new  spheres  and  new  skies: 
They  walked  on  a  more  pliant  Earth 
And  felt  in  themselves  all  the  worth 
They  were  wont  to  ascrihe  hut  to  birth ; 
They  worked — with  a  strange  touch  of  mirth- 
And  sought  not  for  aught  from  the  skies. 

6. 

The  welkin  and  deep  and  weird  sea, 

It  had  seemed,  were  ne'er  to  be  free 
Of  the  dissonance  harbored  so  long. 
Of  the  discord  deplored  as  a  wrong; 

But  now  out  of  the  erstwhile  despair 

And  into  the  heart  of  the  air, 

Dispelling  the  dissonance  there, 

A  melody  welled,  and  swelled  heavenward- 
Thrilled  into  song ! 


SELF-COMPfiEHEXSIOX.  71 

Dull,    thunderous    muttering    edged    the    nether 

world, 

At  last  shrank  Man  aghast — the  hlasting  shraek 
Shrieks  thought  paralytic — hearts  crack — 

A  spastic-  hour!   the  spawn  shall  he  outhurled! 

"But,  deep  into  a  secret  centre  whirled, 
En  forming  energies,  beneath  the  wrack. 
Soft  potencies,  'in id  swirl  demoniac, 

Now  act,  and  1<>!    the  Acme  of  the  World  : 

Th'  organic  life— hrute,  swooning  Nature's  goal; 
The  nohle  form — awakened   Nature's  quest; 

The  thought-horn  speech — hond  of  the  civil  whole; 
The  Rational  Xoul — the  master  manifest. 

Sui'mounted  Nature  passed  like  thunder-sound: 

The  Soul  surveyed  itself  with  glance  profound ! 


72  FIRE. 

God  is  a  living  fire,  old  wisdom  taught. 

I  take  this  taper,  light  with  it  another — 
No  change  whatever  in  the  first  is  wrought: 

J  spend  my  spirit  on  a  needy  brother, 
Yet  is  my  spirit  whole,  its  diminution  naught. 

God  said,  Let  there  he  Light;  and  gods  awoke 
And  lit  a  world  to  life  with  their  pure  flame, 

And  shone  there'mid  in  peace,  till  Something  broke 
The  silent  spell;  whereon  disturbed  became 

They   all — uneasy    for  a    change;   yet   'twas   God 
spoke. 

And  in  the  change  that  thereupon  began — 
The  lighting  of  world  after  world  to  life — 

They  last  a  dark,  gross,  spheral  world  did  plan 
And  passed  down  into  ways  of  stress  and  strife. 

That  through  all  being  they  might  rise  free-souled 
to  ^lan. 

This  darkling  globe  in  which  the  gods  immured 
Themselves  in  search  of  being,  fuller,  higher, 

And  which  through  myriad  ages  hath  endured, 
1  find  is  even  yet  sustained  by  Fire — 

Ethereal  Principle  to  ken  of  sense  obscured. 


FIRK  73 

Throughout  its  seeming  dead  and  formless  crust 
The  Light-horn  atom-constellations  swing; 

And  shone  into  by  more  of  Light,  and  thrust 
Forth  into  form,  the  crystal — thought  and  thing 

Now  one — hears  humble  witness  to  the  Fire  august. 

And  so  the  plant,  the  animal  and  man — 
Successive  reaches  of  the  embodied  Light — 

Bear  witness  to  the  richly  ordered  plan. 
Love-kindled,  which  doth  seek  to  so  unite 

All  things  that  each  in  other  its  own  self  may  scan. 

And  that  before  which  these  do  witness  bear, 
The  Light  itself,  doth  see  itself  in  all, 

All  in  itself,  and  grow  with  joy  aware 
That  its  own  generation  from  the  Fall 

Is  rising  free,  full-wise,  immaculately  fair. 


74  SUPREMACY. 

1. 

What  though  the  sombre  sequence  of  a  hostile, 
circumstantial  chain  of  happenings 
(as  if  a  disincorporating  world 
flung  off  upon  the  centered  microcosm 
the  riffraff  of  disjointed  ill) 

Assail  the  sacred  precincts  of  the  princely 
soul  and  press  upon  the  citadel, 

Shall  the  soul  quail?    Can  aught  without 
confound  the  regency  that  rose  and  holds 
from  the  calm,  high  spirit?   can  aught  without 

confound 

th'  organic  fundament  and  active  source 
of  fluent,  solvent  life  and  the  plastic  world, — 
the  delegate  divine  of  a  sovereign  power 
that  images  and  interacts  with  God? 


What  though  the  fiercely  surging  tidal  impulse 
of  the  underlying,  turbid  source 
of  incarnating  and  evolving  soul, 
a  sea  of  germic  frenzy, 


SUPREMACY  75 

Aspire  vandalk-ally — leap  like  fiend 

of  direst  evil  on  the  quiet  soul — 

lash  it  in  a  devilish  ragt — and  then, 

insatiate,  lick  with  rahid  passion-tongues 

the  lambent  empyrean  spirit-fire ; — 
Cannot  the  gentle  flame  insinuate, 

with  soft  persistence,  its  fine,  dividing  and 

disintegrating  angles — nullify 

by  essence-comminution  all  the  fury 

of  the  limbic  and  matricial  sea — 

and,  timeless,  spaceless,  pulse  with  purest  light. 

in  primal  legislative  glory? 


76  O  FATMEtt  OF  LIGHT ! 

1. 

0  Father  of  Light,  thou  who  art  and  not  wast, 
Thou  who  abidest,  with  the  when  and  the  where  in 

thy  bosom, 

Thou  who  continuest,  sublime  and  ineffable, 
Out  of  space,  out  of  time : 
We  grope  almost  in  the  night,  in  the  night, — 
Be  with  us,  0  Father,  our  Father ! 

2. 

Thou  thinkest,  0  Lord,  and  thy  thought  is  thy  will ; 
Thou  wiliest,  0  Lord,  and  thy  will  is  thy  love; 
Thou  lovest,  0  Lord,  and  thy  love  is  the  birth  of 

thy  creature; 

Thou  thinkest  and  wiliest  and  lovest,  0  Lord, 
And  thou  art  the  life  and  the  light  of  his  spirit : 
We  stumble,  0  Father ;  sustain  us ! 

3. 

Forgive  us,  0  Father  beloved,  if  we  through  the 
mist 

Of  our  thinking  believe  we  can  pierce  to  thy  wis 
dom. 


O   FATHER   OF    LIGHT!  77 

We  feel  we  tire  broken  and  sundered, 

Our  sight  is  a  seeing  at  night, 

But  we  cherish  a  spark  of  thy  spirit — 

We  feel  we  are  made  in  thy  image — and  say  we 

can  know : 
Forgive  us,  0  Father  beloved  ! 


0  Father,  our  Father  most  truly,  to  thee  doth  the 

heart 

Of  thy  creature  revert  with  an  infinite  trust, 
Turn  back  with  an  infinite  faith;  for  we  know,  0 

Father, 

Our  Father,  that  back  of  and  over  our  Fall 
Shone   a    glory    of    spiritual    light — thy    benison, 

Father, — 
0  Father,  our  Father  most  truh  ! 


5. 


And  though  we  have  fallen.  O  Father,  we  know 
That  the  fatal  defect  arose  from  thy  fostering  love; 
We  see,  through  the  mist  of  our  thinking, 
By  the  light  of  thy  spirit  within  us, 


78  O   FATHER   OF   LIGHT  ! 

Tbat  the  pathway  essential  to  glory — is  pain, — 
0  Father,  our  Father  most  truly ! 


6. 


To  be  passive  receivers  of  being,  0  Father  beloved. 
Even  from  thee,  were  to  render  us  alien  to  thee, 
Dependent  and  hollow  and  vain;  but  to  be,  inde- 

feasibly 
Be,  we  must  traverse  the  pathway  of  pain,  through 

earth-lives 
Of  error  and  sin,  to  knowledge  of  self — and  of 

thee, — 
0  Father,  our  Father  most  truly  ! 


7. 


Thus  should  we,  0  Father  beloved,  bear  witness 

indeed 

To  the  light  that  shone  o'er  the  primal  beginning 
And  will  shine  o'er  thy  creature  transfigured,  thy 

creature  self-knowing, 

Self-active,  self-governing,  free,  eternally  free, 
One-natured  with  thee,  adoring,  and  grounded  in 

thee, 
0  Father,  our  Father  most  truly ! 


STAR-WORLDS.  79 

0  weird  Chaldean  star-worlds!  ye 
To  me  are  more  than  diamond  light 
To  grace  the  brow  of  mankind's  night. 
More  than  slavish,  drudging  spheres 
For  signs  and  seasons,  days  and  years. 

Unvarying  and  without  haste, 
Rolling,  rolling,  through  the  eternal, 
Space-unbound  world-vapor  waste, 
\Yithout  a  place,  without  a  date. 
Obeying  each  the  word  supernal, 
Fulfilling  each  the  ordained  fate; 

To  me,  who  rise  but  aye  to  fall, 
Ye  arc  high  symbols  of  that  Cause 
Whence  comes  the  mighty  chain  of  laws 
Which  makes  the  fate  of  the  meanest  one 
A  factor  in  the  fate  of  all ; 

To  me,  who  rise  but  aye  to  fall, 
Ye  are  a  universal  sun 
Illuming  all  the  darkness  in  my  soul. 
Scattering  all  the  wild  divinings, 
Illiml  demands  and  vague  repinings: 


80  STAR-WORLDS 

To  me,  who  rise  but  aye  to  fall, 

Ye  are  a  mighty  open  scroll 

Whereon  I  read :    Be  vast,  Earth-dweller, 

Be  thou  a  circumstance-compeller, 

Go  grandly  onward  to  the  goal. 


FLEE,  FLEE,  0  MY  SOUL!  81 

1. 

Flee,  flee,  0  my  Soul ! 
For  there's  little  for  thee 

In  this  lurid  and  turbulent  world : 
Its  feelings  and  issues 
Are  alien  to  thee, 

Its  idols  are  spirits  downhurled. 

2. 

Flee,  flee,  0  my  Soul ! 
0  flee  and  be  free 

From  the  rancors  that  ceaselessly  pain  thee ; 
For  why  shouldst  thou  stay, 
When  thou  couldst  be  free 

From  the  straits  and  the  fates  that  constrain 
thee? 


3. 


Flee,  flee,  0  my  Soul ! 
Why  an  eremite  be, 

In  a  life  that  is  void  of  achievings? 
For  thy  efforts  arc  vain, 


82  FLEE,    FLEE,    O   MY   SOUL  ! 

And  what  good  can  there  be 

In  these  infinite  thwartinffs  and  grieving:*? 


4. 


Flee,  flee,  0  my  Soul ! 

To  the  light  thou  dost  see, 

The  violet  light  of  von  land ; 
For  as  aether  to  air 

Is  the  light  thou  dost  see, 

To  the  luridness  here  on  this  strand. 


5. 


Flee,  flee,  0  my  Soul ! 

To  the  land  thou  dost  see; 

'Tis  the  land  of  reliefs  and  completions, 
And  the  fair  and  the  rare 
Who  are  there  thou  wilt  see 

And  commune  with  to  sweetest  repletions 

6. 

Flee,  flee,  0  my  Soul ! 
What!  wilt  not  he  free? 


FLEE,  FLEE,  O  MY  SOUL!         83 

Is    tlii-iv    aught    in    these    thwarting*   and 

grievings, 
This  infinite  pain. 

It's  no  gain  to  be  free? 

Dear  Soul,  0  reveal  thy  perceivings! 


84  MOT1IKH  OF  THU  SKY. 

Beautiful  Mother  of  the  Sky,  with  thy  silver 
light  make  glad  the  tired  eyes  of  the  poor  toilers  of 
the  weary  days;  turn  for  them  the  hard  aspect  of 
common  things  into  a  fairyland  of  glory  where  the 
free  thought  may  flash  its  way  here  and  there  and 
revel  in  the  ravelings  of  its  loosened  texture  of 
despair. 

Mother,  Mother  of  the  Deep  Night-Sky,  may  thy 
benignant  light  sink  into  the  hearts  hardened  by 
self-seeking  and  become  there  a  light  of  love  which 
shall,  like  thy  light,  shine  upon  all;  and  so  shall 
the  lover  of  self  lose  himself,  only  to  find  liimsclf 
seated,  enthroned  with  the  truly  great,  in  the 
world's  wide  hall. 


THE  HUGE.  85 

A  tumbled  mass  of  jagged,  ragged  rocks; 

A  wind-swept,  dreary  plain  all  round  about ; 
A  youth,  new  come,  with  genius'  noble  air; — 

Three  scrawny,  whiskered  hags  limp  mumbliiuj 
out! 


The  stranger,   shocked,   would   leave  the  haunted 

spot:— 
One    whistles    shrill    between    her    tongue    and 

tooth ; — 

He  turns, — and  she  in  jarring  accents  screeches : 
"Stay !  and  love  for  love  I'll  give  thec,  youth !" 

He  speechless  stands  and  strives  to  quell  his  scorn; 

They  crouch  down  in  the  shelter  of  a  rock; 
One  holds  him  with  her  rheumy  eyes,  and  croaks: 

"And  I  for  wealth  will  wealth  to  thoe  unlock !" 


His  fierce  disgust  has  now  near  warped  his  soul — 
He   would    on    them    turn   back   the    ills   they 
wreak ; — 

One  skewers  Jiim  with  her  pointing  skinny  arm 
And  hisses :  "I  for  fame  the  fame  you  seek  !" 


86  THE  PRICE 

A-shudder  now  at  these  symbolic  words, 
His  very  fear  emboldens  him  to  speak; 

But  speak  he  cannot — a  something  seals  his  lips,- 
His  very  heart  has  grown  a-cold  and  bleak. 

One  leering  crone  now  pulls  her  flabby  ears; 

One  rubs  her  hanging  nose  and  cackles  mocks ; 
One.  grinning,  claws  the  bristles  on  her  chin; — 

All  mumbling,  mowing,  vanish  'mid  the  rocks. 


ILLUSION.  87 

To  a  beauteous  isle  in  a  southern  sea 

A  restless  spirit  transported  me, 

An  isle  o'crcappcd  with  a  pleasure-palace 

And  Japped  in  languorous  airs  from  the  sea 

Full-laden  with  largess  of  many  a  clmHre 

Lolling,  sweet-lipped,  in  garden  and  lea 

Here,  terraced,  there  sloping  far  off  to  the  sea. 


Ere  we  had  touched  the  marble  pier 

Soft  music  filled  the  atmosphere, 

Foretokening  all  that  isle  did  hold 

Of  heauties,  radiant,  manifold. 

1  hoped  to  dwell  there  evermore, 

Yet  pensively  I  stepped  ashore, 

Pensively,  for  naught  could  shake 

The  sad  trend  that  my  thoughts  would  take. 

I  wandered  here  and  there  awhile, 

Then  sought  the  summit  of  the  isle. 

I  passed  within  the  palace  doors 

And  wondering  trod  the  dazzling  floors; 

I  went  among  the  merry  crew 

Whom  Pleasure's  witchery  thither  drew. 

And  then,  at  last,  in  that  maze  of  folly 

Tried  to  lose  my  melancholy; 


88  ILLUSION 

But,  plagued  at  length  by  a  haunting  doubt, 
I  searched  the  enchanting  place  throughout: 

In  air-pi f dial  balcony,  flower-scented  bower, 

Jfoney-moutbed  lorcr  wooed  coy,  bU&hing  dame: 

In  self -centered  mood,  on  a  world-scanning  tower, 

A  satisfied  ic  tiling  stood,  musing  on  fame ; 

In  the  keep,  on  a  pallet,  neglected  and  cold, 

.  I  1,-in-bcreaved  graijbeard  laij  driveling  in  fear, 

With  eyebalh  turned  xi<l<>irixe  toirard  Death  at  his 

ear; 
And  a  scrimp  in  the  hold  was  worshiping  gold. 

1'ondering  these  few  types  of  what 
AVas  passing  in  that  palace  fair. 
1  slowly  left  the  specious  spot 
And  sought  the  glorious  outer  air. 
Wandering  there,  all  thoughtful,  lonely, 
I  murmured,  "  'Tis  illusion  only. 
When  spirit-life  doth  senseward  surge. 
Earth  greets  a  dupe  or  thaumaturge." 

On  the  marble  coping  of  a  terrace  wall 
I  >at  and  gazed  upon  the  sea, 
And  asked  myself  if  this  were  all 


ILLUSION*  89 

This  lovely  isle  could  hold  for  me — 

This  thirst  for  nectar  in  a  dream, 

This  thirst  for  things  that  merely  seem. 

It  may,  I  mused,  foretoken  clearly 

The  thirst  for  springs  that  deeper  lie, 

And  to  their  waters  lead  more  nearly 

These  foolish  seekers,  by-and-hy; 

But  the  love  that  hums  in  the  finger-tips. 

The  ambition  that  yearns  at  best  through  the  lips, 

The  desire  for  life  at  the  soul's  expense, 

The  greed  for  money,  blind,  intense, — 

Oh,  what  are  these  to  the  soul  that's  free — 

What,  what  are  these1  poor  things  to  me! 

Here,  on  this  ten-ace  wall.  I  stand, 

And  on  the  grandeur  of  the  sea, 

The  peerless  beauty  of  the  land. 

The  mystery  of  the  infinite  sky. 

I  look  with  loving  eye  and  crv  : 

"Oil,  Sea,  Land,  Sky,  be  part  of  me, 

Sink  dee])  down  in  the  heart  of  me, 

Commingle  with  my  inward  dreams. 

Displace  my  longings,  lesser  lights, 

That   1  may — "mid  all  this  that  seems, 

May — from  all  foreign  fetters  free — 

Return  to  those  rich  days  and  nights 


90  ILLUSION 

Ere  'gainst  your  physical  delights, 

Your  grandeur,  beauty,  mystery, 

1  learned  to  set  contrastingly 

These  petty  thoughts  and  doubts  of  thing.* 

These  gropings  and  these  glimmerings. 

With  you  as  part  of  me  once  more 

My  spirit  knows  no  hounding  shore: 

Free!  free!  I  stand,  and  bend  to  none 

But  Him.  the  All-pervasive  One, 

Yet  in  my  spirit  is  there  naught 

Of  pride,  but  rather  is  there  wrought 

That  miracle  of  sympathy, 

A  tender,  calm  humility." 

1  ceased,  and  in  my  soul  did  play 
The  streamers  of  a  coming  day — 
I  looked  again  on  land,  sky,  sea 
And  I'nciv  them  but  a  part  of  me; 
They — like  the  illusory  palace-life 
And  objects  of  desire  and  strife. 
Xay,  like  the  builded  faery  pile 
Itself,  or  like  the  lover's  smile — 
Were  but  expressions  of  a  being 
Deeper,  vaster  far  than  they. 
From  me,  me  blind  but  all-foreseeing, 


ILLUSION  91 


These  mighty  tilings  that  I  survey 
Did  conic,  shall  go,  may  come  again: — 
Can  I,  then,  in  this  pleasure-pen, 
This  dream  within  a  dream,  ahide? 

N"o,  no,  let  me  he  side  by  side 
And  en  nijt/xtrl  witli  strenuous  souls, 
High-striving,  seeing  things  by  wholes; 
Let  me  be  where  across  the  sweep 
Of  common  things  deep  unto  deep 
May  call  and  with  a  tender  care 
Work  out  that  end  beyond  compare, 
The  lighting  of  the  aimless  way 
Of  those  who  walk  in  darkness,  nay 
The  adding  to  the  gladdening  sum 
Of  things  for  those  who  are  to  come. 

Leaving  then  the  terrace  wall, 
Unmindful  of  the  hopes  and  all 
That  led  me  to  this  lovely  isle, 
And  with  a  long-unwonted  smile — 
The  smile  of  one  whose  way  is  clear — 
T  sought  again  the  marble  pier. 


92  A  VISION  OF  DEGREES. 

I  sailed  upon  a  mystic  sea, 

And  si d- faced  beings,  marked  by  doom, 
Clutched  their  bosoms  and  kept  pace 

With  me  within  the  water-gloom. 

Each  strove  his  neighbor  to  outdo, 
Each  seemed  to  look  me  through  and  through, 
As  if  he  sought  to  penetrate 
The  meaning  of  my  kindlier  fate. 

A  pompous  figure  curled  his  lip 

And  looked  me  loftily  in  the  eye; — 

In  him  no  sense  of  fellowship — 
I,  hopeless,  left  him,  with  a  sigh. 


COXSOLATIOX.*  93 

Xo  more,  my  dear,  no  more,  no  more, 

Shall  the  prying  eyes  of  saucy  day 

Our  sacred,  sweet  unrest  survey,, 

On  love's  <leep  sea  or  life's  disheartening  shore; 

Xo  more  shall  hnmelodions  note 

In  on  our  living  music  float. 

There's  little  leave  for  loving  here, 

There's  little  time  for  more  than  tears, 

]>ut,  now  thou'rt  gone  forever,  dear, 

However  wearily  will  creep 

The  lonely,  lingering,  tedious  years, 

We'll  nightly  meet,  with  faith  unfailing,  dear, 

Down  in  the  silent  vale  of  sleep. 

We'll  meet  heneath  the  Avillow  there. 
The  silver  willow  all  alone, 
Within  the  silent  vale  of  sleep; 
lieside  the  slumberous  river  there., 
We'll  meet  alone,  all,  all  alone, 
Down  in  the  hlissful  vale  of  sleep. 


*  Song  from  an  unpublished  renounce. 


94  LOVE. 

Archmaster  of  the  mightiest  minds, 

Divine  attraction,  holy  rage, 

Love  rules  the  world  and  all  its  kinds, 

Peoples  our  life-hermitage 

With  Beauty's  forms  and  shadowings — 

Projections  of  diviner  things. 

If  you  have  never  loved,  my  friend, 
You  little  know  what  living  means, 
You  have  not  looked  behind  the  scenes 
And  outward  shows  that  constitute 
The  common  lot  that  living  gleans, 
You  cannot  nearly  comprehend 
The  music  of  that  cosmic  lute 
Which  leads  us,  willing,  in  pursuit 
Of  a  never-ending  end. 


WHAT  GIVES  THE  SUFFERER        95 
STRENGTH  ? 

Life  soon  is,  indeed,  as  certain  poets  teach, 

A  futile  wandering  in  a  wilderness; 
Yet,  from  this  wretched  life  of  mine  upreach 

High  yearnings  which  no  soul  that  suffered  less 
Could  feel — no  Paradise  enspirit  into  speech. 

But  ye  that  suffer  and  are  silent,  ye 
Forever  straining  at  the  thingy  mass 

That  unopposed  would  your  destroyer  he, 
What  brings  your  fortitude  to  such  a  pass 

That,  cramped  and  tortured,  ye  yet  stay  to  strug 
gle  free? 

If  I — despite  the  fact  that  my  sad  lot 

Doth  hear  high  yearnings  that  enkindle  me 

To  rouse  their  like  in  those  that  know  them  not— 
At  times  but  little  use  in  life  can  see, 

What  gives  the  silent  sufferer  strength, — endur 
ance,  what? 


96  THE  INCOMPLETE. 

In  a  weird,  unnamed  and  shadowy  land 
1  walked  along  a  winding  strand. 
Slimy  strand,  thick-strewn  with  bones 
Half  hid  within  the  ooze  of  years, 
With  sunken  pomp,  with  broken  thrones, 
Sad  relics  of  men's  hopes  and  fears. 

(Here's  mutter  in  plenty  to  re-arnuujc, 
But  be  tea  re  of  the  ycnii,  Chance  and  Chanije.) 
I  walked  there  'neath  a  grewsome  sky 
And  gazed  out  o'er  the  gloomy  water: 
I  too  had  sought  Fame — now  mused  on  why 
I  had  so  much  desired  and  sought  her; 
Then  came  a  rush  like  a  geyser's  gush, — 
I  felt  a  shuddering  dizziness, — 
I  turned,  and  there  a  huddling  press 
Of  haggard  forms,  who  slowed  their  pace, 
Stood  still  and  stared  me  in  the  face. 
Then  wheeled  around  with  a  sighing  sound 
And  hurried  hack  into  murky  space. 
(\Vlirrc.  in  /lie  feverish,  fruitless  <jnc$t, 
Where  I  lie  ne/ienllie  fur  li<innlin</  unrest?) 
Alone  upon  that  mystic  shore 
I  stayed  to  muse,  and  more  and  more 
T'pon  my  sorrowing  soul  did  beat 
The  sadness  of  the  Incomplete: 
The  pain  intolerable  grown, 
T  then  did  from  that  strand  retreat 
And  leave  to  grief  and  gloom  their  own. 


SOUEOW-LADEX.*  97 

"Oh,  where  is  the  heart  that  is  sorrow-laden?" 
"Here,"  said  the  maiden,  forlorn,  forlorn, 
"Here  is  the  heart  that  is  sorrow-laden : 
Oh,  woe  is  me !  that  I  ever  was  born." 

"Is  there  naught  that  can  lighten  the  load  of  thy 

sorrow  ?" 

"Ah,  no ;  ah,  no,"  cried  the  maiden  forlorn, 
"There's  naught  that  can  lighten  the  load  of  my 

sorrow : 
Oh,  woe  is  me !  that  I  ever  was  born." 

"But  there's  peace  in  the  world  God's  will  to  ful 
fill." 

"Ah,  yes;  ah,  yes,"  cried  the  maiden  forlorn, — 
"The  cliff  it  is  steep,  and  the  wave  it  is  still : 
Oh,  woe  is  me!  that  I  ever  was  born." 


*  Song  from  an  unpublished  romance. 


98  SONG.* 

Turn.,  oh  turn,  those  eyes  upon  me, 
Search  my  soul's  dark,  lonesome  night- 
This  is  I,  my  love,  my  light ! 

Do  hut  deign  to  smile  upon  me, 
And  I  straight  am  star-bedight — 
This  is  I,  my  love,  my  light ! 


*  From  an  uncompleted  drama 


WALTHAM  AND  MARGRA.  99 

TART  I. 

Scene: — A  Deserted  Mansion  and  the  Remains  of  a 
Magnificent  Garden  on  the  Outskirts  of  a  Uni 
versity  Town. 

Persons: — Waltham,  a  young  instructor  in  Philos 
ophy.  Margra,  his  betrothed. 

WALTHAM. 
(Entering  the  garden,  for  his  customary  afternoon 

walk  and  meditation.) 
A  puppet  I? — a  mere  machine? — a  thing 
Without  inherent  power — without  the  spring 
Of  free,  autonomous  action;  here  and  there 
Compelled  my  aspirations  to  forswear; 
In  cold  and  staring  silence  forced  to  find 
The  full  refulgence  of  th'  ecstatic  mind 
Abate  unto  the  heavy  light  of  day 
Or  e'en  the  pale  death-light  upon  decay; 
Constrained,  through  some  tenacious  race-persis 
tence 

Tn  some  narrow,  dull,  material  groove, 
To.  feel  and  think  and  act  and  onward  move, 
In  general,  on  that  line  of  least  resistance? 
In  crystal  periods,  when  some  hurst  of  power 
Crowds  archangel  ic  vision  in  an  hour, 
\nd   from  the  summit  of  ;i  Might  s 


IOO  WAI/THAM    AND   MARGRA 

I  fling  my  winged  soul,  through  vague  out-places, 

Off  into  arcane,  nascent  spaces, 

In  ageless,  alphane  time, 

Just  as  the  unfolding  spirit  doth  begin 

To  solve  the  mystery  of  the  origin 

Of  things,  and  with  unbounded  joy  I  burn, — 

Constrainedly  I  turn — 

And  there,  in  hard  outlines,  a  hideous  thing — 

Stone  still,  or  passing  backward,  beckoning ! 

The  rearward  glance  hath  cost  the  angelic  sight! 

A  soft  illumination  stays,  whose  light 

Reveals  a  something  not  myself  which  ever 

Beckons  onward,  outward,  starry  bright., 

Adding  beauty  unto  beauty, 

Pausing  never, 

Waiting  for  me  never; 

And  yet,  it  seems,  the  farther  out  I  chase 

This  beauteous  phantom  in  the  world-light  in  me, 

The  stronger  rise  retarding-things  to  win  me 

Back — to  stare  that  monster  in  the  face ! 

(He  turns  and  sees  Margra  by  the  dilapidated 
fountain  where,  slightly  obscured  by  the  rank 
plants,  she  has  been  standing  since  he  entered 
the  enclosure  and  began  to  walk,,  ivith  folded 
arms,  thoughtfulh/  and  sadly  to  and  fro  on  the 


WAI/THAM    AND    MARGRA  IOI 

sliort  path  tangent  to  the  circitliir  basin,  be 
fore  unburdening  his  troubled  mind  in  this 
im passioned  soliloquy. ) 

Ah!  Margra,  thou  here? 

(He  hastens  to  her  and  takes  her  hand.) 

I  little  thought  to  see  thee  here  to-day— 

And  thou  so  near! 

How  was't  no  subtile  sympathies  did  course 

From  those  dark  eyes,  no  potent,  speaking  force 

From  this  superb  embodiment,  and  say: 

"Thy  Margra's  here?" 

M  AIJGRA. 

I  came  to  walk  with  thee  and  talk  with  thee — 
I  knew  I'd  find  thee  here. 

WALTHAM. 

Some  sister  angel  told  thee  so ; 
Or,  perchance  ,last  night  our  souls  did  meet 
And  rapturously  read  the  rapid  come-and-go 
Of  fire-emblazoned  thoughts  that  voiceless  rose 
Within  the  radiant  soul-sphere,  and  in  the  sweet 
Discourse  to  one  another  did  d  inclose 
Our  mingled  destinies  from  day  to  day, 
And  these  prophetic  visions,  dark  to  me, 
Still  shine  in  thee  with  undiminished  ray. 
My  Margra,  oft  I've  thought  that  thou  and  I, 


102  WAI/THAM   AND    MARGRA 

Discarding  this  earth-treading  mask  of  clay 

Which  plummet-  like  down  from  an  archal  sky 

Hath  plunged,  the  God-born  spirit's  tenement, 

Have  drifted  out  into  the  boundless  deep, 

And  there  the  clouds  about  our  souls  have  rifted, 

And  in  the  burst  of  glory  o'er  us  sprent 

We  have  awaked  as  from  an  age-long  sleep, 

And  vision  after  vision  then  exalting 

Us  until  once  more  we  left  behind 

Our  forms,  our  shadow-forms,  the  Deep  o'ervault- 

ing 

Us  evanished : — a  spirit  unconfined 
I  was — thou  wast —  and  thou  and  I,  my  love, 
Apart  no  more,  were  one. 

MARGRA. 

You're  too  ideal,  Henry ;  you  see  in  me 
Not  what  I  am,  but  what  you'd  have  me  be. 

WALTHAM. 

Turn  not  from  me,  Margra,  listen  to  me: — 
I  see  things  as  they  are,  not  as  they  seem; 
The  world-supporting  potencies  pass  through  me 
From  Being's  Fountainhead ;  the  calni,  still  stream 
My  soul  impedes  but  slightly  in  its  course — 
It  does  not  strike  against  me  as  a  wall 
And  pile  up  with  its  full,  majestic  force 


WALTHAM    AND    MARKKA  103 

(ircat  airy  nothingness  \vhirh.  when  the  wall 
Hath  crumbled,  once  again  must  formless  fall 
Into  the  ever-flowing  fountain-stream. 

MARGBA. 
How  i-d n  you  love? — they  say  that  love's  a  dream. 

\V.  \LTIIA.M. 

Dost  I  lion  not  know  how  1  can  love — 
I  who  before  thy  first.  s\ve-;-t    whisperings 
Of  love  for  me.  had  touched  no  book 
And  shunned  a  le(-ture  for  a  look 
From  thee,  until  my  ])uj)ils.  restless  grown, 
Were  leaving  me  and  drabbling  angel-wings 
In  mire  of  logic,  atom,  flesh  and  bone? 
How  can  /  love? — ab,  this  from  thee? 
They  say  that  love's  a  dream — a  dream — 
A  mere  lip-worthy,  poetaster  theme? — 
Thy  beauty,  Margra.  is  to  me 
As  real  as  is  thy  soul  to  thee. 
As  real  as  is  that  perfect  thing 
Of  which  thou  art  a  shadowing — 
That  shining  Form  which  silent  lies 
Out  of  sight  of  human  eyes; 
Thy  grace  and  beauty  are  a  part 
Of  my  own  make-up — what  thou  art 
Am  I;  and  Beauty,  Grace  and  Love 


104  VVALTHAM   AND  MARGRA 

Are  one;  then  what  more  real  can  be, 
My  Margra,  than  the  love  I  feel  for  thee  ? 

MARGRA. 

I  understand  you  not — I  understand  you  not ! 
(Moves  sloivly  cncay.) 

WALTHAM. 
0  Margra !  what  can  I  say — 

0  dearest  one,  1  bid  thee  stay  ! 

MARGRA. 

Why  stay  ?    To  hear  you  talk — "a  mere  madiine"- 
Because  you  must? 

WALTHAM. 
What  would  you  have?    This  pains  me  to  the  heart. 

MARGHA. 

I'd  have  you  "stare  that  monster  in  the  face" 
And  learn  by  contrast  human  woman's  grace! 

WALTHAM. 

A  tear?  a  tear  in  that  dark  eye? 
Tell  me,  dearest,  why,  oh  why ! 

MARGRA. 

1  tell  thee,  Henry,  woman's  heart  is  deep — 

WALTHAM. 
Yea,  the  heart's  the  well-spring  of  a  world. 

MARGRA. 
And  woman's  love  can  life-long  watches  keep, 


WALTHAM    AND    MARGRA  105 

With  patient,  circled  eyes  and  broken  sleep — 

WALTITAM. 
Yea,  love's  the  nrnte  word  of  a  mighty  will. 

MARGRA. 

And  woman's  brain  can  throb  with  fever-fire, 
To  grant  an  nnderbreath  of  love's  desire — 
And  woman's  mind  is  as  a  lyre  love-strung. 
Tense  and  instinct  with  wealth  of  songs  unsung- 
Nay,  Henry,  she  can  give  up  all  God  gave 
And  lay  her  down  for  love's  sake  in  the  grave. 

WALTHAM. 

But  can  she  fan  to  flame  the  glowing  thought 
And  lead  the  inward-centered  mind  to  aught 
That's  everlasting,   true,   eternal — 
Can  she  light  her  lamp  at  fire  supernal 
And  set  it  in  that  reflex,  gloomy  den 
Far  down  within  the  immortal  hearts  of  men? 

MARGRA. 

Woman  cannot  understand,  and  would  not, 
A  love  that  calls  on  logic  to  defend  it; 
And  what  a  woman's  love  could  do,  or  could  not, 
'Tis  sure,  an  act  like  that  is  apt  to  end  it. 

WALTITAM. 

Can  woman  understand,  or  take  a  part 
In  the  proud  interests  of  a  pool's  heart? 


106  WAI/THAM    AND    MARGRA 

Can  woman  understand  the  art  that  tells 

Of  the  wondrous  realms  of  Form  and  Thought — • 

Can  she  feel  its  grandeur,  reeks  she  aught 

Of  the  god-like  power  that  in  it  dwells? 

MARGRA. 

If  that  art  find  a  root  in  my  own  life, 
And  draw  not,  like  the  air-plant,  from  the  air — 
If  I  could  feel  it  living,  growing,  there, — 
Then  could  I,  Henry,  he  your  loving  wife; 
But  though  you  scale  the  highest  heights  of  art, 
And  send  no  living  rootlet  to  my  heart. 
Then  would  that  lofty  art  a  barrier  he 
Between  the  sweetening  light  of  love  and  me: 
Should  I  in  shadow,  like  a  fungus,  grow. 
I'd  grow  as  hitter  as  the  hitter  sloe. 

WALT  1 1  A.M. 

The  poet  needs  a  wealth  of  sympathy 
Wherewith  to  shape  his  Hitting,  vague  creations; 
And  his  a  tranquil,  quiet  life  must  he. 
His  soul  to  hear  the  faint  reverberations 
Of  the  Word  from  sphere  to  sphere. 

MARGRA. 
The  one  I  wed  no  voice  but  mine  shall  hear. 

WALTHAM. 
Self-will's  a  power  in  this  proud  world  alone; 


WALTHAM    AND    MARGRA  IOJ 

The  world  of  perfect  form  and  angel  thought 
])oth  hold  our  earthly  will  or  will-not  naught: 
The  Perfect  Form  can  haunt  a  soul  downthrow  n; 
The  still,  small  Voice  can  reach  a  heart  of  stone; 
Tlien  can  the  poet  himself  in  self  ensphere 
And  say,  I  will  not  sec,  I  will  not  hear? 

MARGRA. 

Olu  these  voices,  visions,  Jlenry  dear! 
Thy  hateful  hooks  have  made  thee  sick,  1  fear. 

\V.\LT1IAM. 

Xo,  no,  no,  my  Margra,  no,  not  sick; — 
Something  incongruous  pricks  me  to  the  quick. 
There's  canker  here,  and  stinging  nettles  there, 
And  ugly  weeds  and  misgrowths  everywhere, 
Corruption-marks,  upon  this  Garden's  face — 
Sad  obsession  of  a  beauteous  place 
Of  regal  landscape-form  and  (lower-grace! 
And  in  yon  warping  mansion  blind  decay 
Doth  lurk,  and  wear  the  weary  years  away. 
The  canted  chimneys — loosened  clapboards — 
Sagged  verandas — broken  railings — 
The  displaced  steps  and  blistered  door — 
Yon  shutter  hanging  downward  by  one  hinge — 
Great  dripping  stains  from  rusted  nail-beads, 
Shutter-hooks   and   shutter-hinges, 


108  WALTHAM    AND   MARGRA 

Like  marks  of  senile  tears  upon  the  livid 
Visage  of  a  hag — 
Is  this  not  irritation? 
Is  not  this  vexation? 

MARGRA. 

What  means  this  gloomy,  nervous  mood  to-day  ? 

WALTHAM. 

Evil  beings  all  about  us  lurk 
To  catch  us  at  a  nadir-time 
And  trip  us  in  their  murk  and  slime. 

MARGRA. 

(With  tears  in  her  eyes) 
Am  I  an  evil  being,  Henry? 

WALTHAM. 

(Steps  to  her  and  takes  her  hand) 
Forgive  me,  Margra;  pain  me  not  with  tears 
In  those  soft  eyes  of  thine. 
If  in  my  spirit  rise  dark,  wildering  fears, 
Grim,  elemental  shadows,  beckoning-things, 
Eidolons,  proffering  wings  and  magic  rings 
And  pointing  backward  through  chaotic  years, 
They're  exorcised  by  this  dear  self  of  thine ; 
And  if  there's  aught  of  clogging,  earth-commingl 
ing 


WALTHAM    AND    MARGRA  109 

Humour  in  any  vein  or  nerve  of  mine, 

'Tis  quickly  scattered  by  the  best-outsingling, 

Subtile  aura  from  this  sweet  hand  of  thine. 

MARGRA. 

Thou'rt  now  thyself,  my  Henry ;  why,  say  why 
Such  thoughts  ?  Thou  mad'st  me  sigh,  thou  mad'st 

me  cry — 

And  .were  it  not  of  all  grave  acts  the  gravest, 
I  should  have  given  thee  back  the  ring  thou  gavest. 

WALTIIAM. 

'Twas  but  my  Reason's  mad  intensity 
Contemplating  Love's  immensity : 
The  Universal  Life  my  self  subverting, 
'Twas  but  my  self  her  freedom  still  asserting. 

MARGRA. 

Thou  lov'st  me,  Henry?     Canst  thou  of  that  per 
suade  me, 

I'll  store  thy  honey-words  within  my  heart, — 
I'll  live,  a  queen,  within  thy  jealous  Art. 

WALTHAM. 
I,-Margra,  am  what  love  and  thought  have  made 

me. 

What  gives  my  thoughts  their  spirit-wings? 
What  teaches  me  deep,  world-old  things 


I  10  WALTHAM    AND    MARGKA 

First  taught  in  angel-visitings? 
'Tis  but  my  love  and  that  repaid  me. 

Dearest,  oft  to  me  it  seems 

That  my  soul-stirrings,  flashings,  dreams, 

Do  augur  that  the  underlying, 

I'niversal  Mind  is  trying 

To  assert  with  force  its  own, 

Place  an  Isis  on  the  throne 

Of  my  being  and  reveal 

What  my  intellect  alone 

Must  disfigure  or  conceal. 

At  times,  it  seems  I  pass  the  pale 

Of  mere  incarnate  spirit's  sphere; 

At  times,  it  seems  ]  pierce  the  veil 

Which  hides  the  Heal  from  dwellers  here. 

I've  scoured  the  Ptolemaic  skies, 

I've  risen   to  the  empyrean, 

I've  been  where  great  Archaeus  li'S, 

I've  listened  to  a  heavenly  paean. 

But,  when  o'er  our  love  doth  fall 
Fate's  misty  darkness,  like  a  pall; 
Or  as  Mnemosyne's  starbright  night, 


WAI.TIIAM    AND    MARGRA  I  I  I 

\Yith  its  suns  and  planets  and  thou  its  moon 
Eclipsed  by  the  counterfeit-death  of  a  swoon: 
Then,  it  seems  that  I  grope  and  crawl 
Through   a   murky    world,   with    a    glow-worm's 

light; 

Or  the  hideous  gloom  seems  to  cover  all, 
And  1  feel  my  way  in  a  slow-worm's  night. 

So,  thinking  often  a  sibyl-thought, 
And  thinking  often  that  life  is  nought, 
Unsunned  by  thy  love,  uncrowned  with  thy  crest, 
I've  longed — in  a  maddening,  maelstrom  whirl, 
In  a  frantic,  dizzying  spirit-swirl — 
I've  longed  for  the  ever-less'ning  unrest, 
I've  longed  for  the  ever-deepening  thought, 
Out  of  the  Earth-sphere,  on  with  the  best. 

MARGRA. 

0  Henry,  canst  thou  these  things  feel  and  see, 
Then  turn  thyself  again  to  only  me? 

\Y  ALT  1 1  A.M. 

Only  thee!     I  tell  thee,  Margra,  thou  to  mo 
Art  as  the  unrun  orbit  of  the  Galaxy: 
With  thee,  I  feel  a  something  grand,  but  incom 
plete — 


112  WALTHAM   AND    MARGRA 

A  bounded  power — ah,  sweetly  sad — ah,  sadly 
sweet ! 

Before  I  knew  thee,  dear  one  (was  there  e'er  such 
time?), 

When,  on  the  low  lake-marge  or  mountain-top 
sublime, 

Within  my  silent  chamber  or  some  cold  cleft  of 
Earth, 

I  pondered  on  the  grave,  the  mystery  of  birth, 

And  the  wondrous  scheme  of  Xature  and  what  it 
meant  to  me, 

I  felt  a  selfish  silence  the  wisest  course  would  be; 

For,  to  crystallize  my  thought  in  written  line 

Or  clothe  it,  even,  in  fleeting  speech,  alive,  divine, 

I  felt  would  be  acknowledging  my  nature  bound 
ed— 

In  time,  would  sign  with  signified  become  con 
founded, 

And  I,  with  every  thinking  and  unthinking  clod, 

Should  come  to  pass  a  judgment  on  my  Spiritual 
God. 

Was   I  but  man  as  man  is  now,  daft,  reasoning- 
mad, — 
Puny  groper,   clay-clad  and   reasoning-mad — 


WAI/THAM    AND    MARGRA  113 

Creeping  clerk-like  here  with  many  a  measuring- 
thing, 

'Mid  fleeting  shadows,  labeling,  inventorying; 
Then,  by  summation,  involution,  evolution, 
Deft  transposing,  elimination,   substitution, 
Reasoning  on    (fond  mind-and-matter  diplomat) 
To  some  final,  universal  this-is-that 
Which  lie  the  Cosmic  Formula  doth  grandly  call, 
The  very  soul  and  life-source  of  the  each  and  all, — 
Was  I  but  man  as  man  is  now,  thus  reasoning- 
mad  ? 

'Twas  then   arose  the  thoughts  that  would  not 

then  be  spoken, 
'Twas  then  my  heart,  the  immortal  part  of  me, 

gave  token 

Of  a  potential,  demiurgic,  world-deep  power, 
A  bursting  power  to  know,  awaiting  but  the  hour : 
I   would  rise  from  weary  reasoning's  limitation, 
Imperil  selfhood  in  demonic  inspiration, 
And   thus   uncinct,  recall  and   live  each   several 

part, 
Once  more,  of  life  within  the  old  worlds  in  my 

heart ; 
And  thus,  and  only  thus,  should  I  know  all. 


114  WALTHAM    AND    MARGRA 

Then  did  my  soul  an  inward  strife  endure: 
My  intellect — the  egoist,  slow  but  sure — 
Would  creep  along  for  ages  to  the  goal ; 
My  young-old  heart  would  time  itself  transcend 
And  in  a  selfless  act  of  alien  strength 
Would  unfold  all  things  in  a  dream's  length ; 
And  so,  betwixt  the  two,  my  perplexed  will 
Unstable  grew,  and  more  unstable  still. 

Then  often,  night  and  day,  wishing,  fearing 
Bounds,  I  cried,  at  times  when  in  the  inward 
Strife  my  heart  was  victor: 
"Oh,  would  my  nature  had  but  bounds! 
I  am  not  happy — why  is  it  so? 
Man-child  of  the  Infinite  am  I— 
bought   obstructs  my  range  of  thought, — 
My  soul  is  wearied  with  her  ceaseless  choosing, 
Ceaseless  chasing  of  the  phantom 
Out  into  the  mystic  spaces, — 
Influences  from  the  two  spheres 
Pour  into  me  from  every  side — 
They  come   I   know   not    wherefore,   I   knou    not 

how — 

Influences  of  good, 
Influences  of  evil — 


\VAI/THAM    AND    MARGRA  115 

1   absorb  them — I  sympathize  with  all — 
I  am  the  human  race, 
The  low  and  the  divine !" 
1   was  then  most  miserable,  Margra, 
But  in  my  altruistic,  powerless  state 
Did  1  conceive  a  most  strange  view  of  things — 
The  moral  phase  then  forced  itself  upon  me: 
1  felt  a  loving  check  and  knew  the  power 
Which  held  me,  as  a  part  of  my  own  self, 
Yet  more,  beyond  expression,  than  myself; 
And  1  named  the  august,  cherishing  one 
Divine  Augoeides,  my  Guardian  Angel. 
Oh,  1  were  at  that  time  golden-tongued, 
Were  introspective  thought  not  all  of  me! 
1   could  not  act,  for  too-deep  heart-thought 
.Had  rived  my  world  from  that  of  living  men. 

And  when  my  tiili'llccl  was  uppermost, 
1  cried  from  out  my  heart :     "Oh,  why  this  dark 
ness, 

Tb is  impenetrable,  blinding  mist; 
Why  this  sudden  wall  impeding,  piling 
Up,  with  many  a  huge  froth-mass,  and  turning 
Backward  on  myself,  the  flood  of  action?" 
But  in  those  moments  when  my  heart  was  still 


Il6  WALTHAM   AND   MARGRA 

I  was  most  happy  in  the  consciousness 

Of  feeling,  acting  and   of  being  that 

Which  I  most  felt  myself  to  be — a  man, 

A  warm,  substantial,  hedonistic  man: 

I  was  myself,  blood-full,  self  willed  and  centered. 

At  this  dismembered,  analytic  time 

Of  introspective  thought  and  thirsty  life; 

This  time  of  non-commingling  elements, — 

Antipathetic  molecules — with  frantic, 

Centre-fleeing  movement — clashing — driven 

Centrewards, — with  fiery  spicula 

Of  passion  shooting  meteor-like  from  nowhere 

Across  the  all-containing  soul's  night: 

At  this  disordered,  disincorporate  time, 

Into  the  dark  and  limitless  alembic 

Of  my  soul  there  flowed  all-solvent  love, 

Essential  aqua-regia,  seeking  one-ness. 

Dost  know  the  source,  superb  one? 

MARGRA. 

Thy  Margra's  heart — thy  Margra's  love. 

WALTHAM. 
Yes,  dear;  it  was;  and  'twas  most  opportune 


WAI/THAM    AND    MARGE  A  Iiy 

(Spellbound,    I    knew     my     Guardian     Angel's 

boon,)  — 

For,  as  some  comet  with  elliptic  course, 
Thrown  into  perturbations  wild,  perforce 
Doth  seek  along  a  hyperbolic  path 
An  issue  from  the  sun-fear  that  it  hath, 
So  I  (but  for  that  chance  sweet  sight  of  thee 
^  licnce  rose  the  subtile  force  that  centered  me) 
Should  soon  have  quit  the  orbit  of  all  use, 
Cut  myself  from  all  enthrallment  loose, 
And  sped  along  my  freakish,  self-willed  way 
In  unfree  freedom,  thinking  thus  to  stay 
That  fatal  time  when,  something  higher  told  me, 
Self  should  fall,  the  great  One  Life  enfold  me. 

I  felt  an  awful  pause,  and  then  the  growing 

Centeredness ;  it  was  a  silent,  selective, 

Germinativc  time,  and  soon  I  felt 

With  joy  a  spirit  presence  hovering  near, 

And  turned  me  here  and  turned  me  there  at  times 

To  catch  a  glimpse  of  that  I  felt  beside  me. 

"Augoeides  divine,"  I  one  time  cried 

Out  from  my  heart,  "unseal  my  sodden  eyes; 

Reveal  to  me  thy  grandeur  and  thy  glory; 

Teach  me  the  mystery  of  reason,  faith 


Il8  WALTHAM    AND   MARGRA 

And  love;  and  say  what  moaneth  this  sweet  peace." 

The  spirit  spoke  from  deep  within  my  soul: 

"I  am  not  form — seek  me  in  aiding  others 

To  a  knowledge  of  themselves. 

Strive  to  perfect  thyself, 

And  I  will  interpenetrate, 

Become   incorporate   in, 

The  wel)  of  things 

And  make  them  of  a  mind  with  thee, 

So  that  thy  Avishing  shall  be  their  fulfillment." 

Xow,   beloved,   unperturbed   except 

l>y  small,  eccentric  moments  from  unknown, 

Incalculable  gravities  which   draw 

At  times  my  life  from  thine,  thou  love-adept, 

Thou  heart  of  my  heart,  queen  I  there  enthrone; 

Now,  know  J  the  law  engrounding  law, 

And  realize  the  sacred  depths  of  grace: 

The  life  within,  the  life  in  placeless  place — 

Beautiful  repose — the  gift  divine — 

The  wondrous  solving  of  the  mine  and  thine — 

The  love  no  object  for  its  love  demanding — 

The  peace  of  God,  that  passeth  understanding. 

The  concord  of  my  intellect  and  heart 
Doth  seem  the  fountain  of  a  living  Art; 


WAI/THAM    AND    MARGRA  1 19 

I  think  with  heart,  see  with  prophetic  eyes, 
And  to  my  lips  rich  thoughts  and  feelings  rise, 
Demanding  for  their  fullness  speech-expression 
And  for  their  quickening  spirit  world-possession: 
I  -would  set  free,  imprinted  with  my  seal, 
The  imprisoned  spirit  of  the  world  I  feel; 
And  for  the  culture  in  my  heart  I'm  storing 
(Ineffable  essence  of  the  things  inpouring) 
I  would  make,  as  I  go,  my  reckoning 
And  thus  avoid  That,  backward  beckoning; 
For  every  living,  deep,  expanding  soul, 
In  strict  return  for  each  new  thought  or  feeling 
Its  hidden  powers  and  attributes  revealing, 
Part  of  itself  must  give  unto  the  Whole. 

MARC;  i:  A. 

Sometimes    I    cannot    understand    thee,    dear. 
Yet  I  believe  in  thee:  in  thy  soul's  sphere 
(To  use  thy  words)   I  find  for  all  my  strange, 
Vague   woman's    fancies,   freaks,    free   scope   and 

range ; 

Of  all  my  wealth  of  love,  in  thy  dear  heart 
I  feel  an  everlasting  counterpart; 
But  what  I  am  and  what  can  be  to  thee 
Cannot  exceed  thy  worth, 
For  thou  art  all  the  world  to  me. 


I2O  WAI/THAM    AND   MARGRA 

PART    II. 

Scene: — The  same.     Waltham:  Margra.  hi*  irife; 
and  their  child,  seated  beside  the  old  fountain. 


WALTHAM. 

(Almost  to  himself,  renewing  the  time  irlien  he. 

had  first  met  Margra.  fire  years  before.} 
I  walked  here  sadly  once — a  bright,  glad  day, 
A  lingering  sense  did  often  afterward  say; 
But  quite  oblivious  was  I  then  of  all 
The  Xature-pulsing  spells  which  here  do  fall 
On  delicate  ear  and  natural,  sensitive  eye: — 
The  meadow-lark's  rich,  melancholy  call. 
The  wild  canary's  wealth  of  note  on  note, 
The  treasures  of  our  mocking-bird's  full  throat, 
Could  nothing  to  my  thought-turned  ear  supply; 
The  flowers  and  winged  things  that'  overfloat, 
This    plant-grown    fount,     the    rustic     seats,    the 

walks, 

The  warping  mansion,  the  stately  trees,  the  hawks, 
And  even  that,  our  Californian  sky, 
Could  not  lure  out  my  inward-centered  eye. 
I  mind  me  now  that  nought  to  me  could  flow 
From  things  but  some  harsh  theme  of  carping 
crow ; 


\VAI«THAM   AND  MARGRA  121 

The  very  pattern  of  the  period  lay 

In  the  restless,  squalling  blue- jay. 

I  walked  here  sadly,  when,  on  yonder  path 

Where  sight  strains  all  the  virtue  that  it  hath 

On  this  strange  place,  beneath  the  oak-tree  there 

Which  bids  the  sun  at  noon  but  warm  the  air 

About   its  gnarl-made,  natural  seat, 

Two  soft  eyes — dark,  wild-clustering  hair — 

A  mouth  so  sweet 

That  Art  must  look,  throb  and  despair — 

And  in  love-pencilled  curves,  a  form  complete, — 

Kebuked  the  sluggish  outward  sense 

And  bade  it  feel,  with  reverence, 

Our  glorious  world's  magnificence; 

And  thereupon,  relaxed  the  tense-drawn 

N  erves  of  thought ; 

Tlf  expanding  pupil,  larging  nare, 

The  quickened  ear, — heard  music  rare, 

Breathed  Nature  in — saw  strange,  new  colors 

In  the  genial  air; 

And  tingling  sympathy  revealed 

Deep  natural  unisons, 

To  outer  sense  concealed. 

Things  came  closer,  through  their  comprehension, 

And  each  glanceful,  quick  with  rapt  attention, 


122  WALTHAM   AND   MARGRA 

Partook,  Art-like,  of  the  mind  divine. 
There  was  no  glamour  in  these  eyes  of  mine! 
Things  came  closer  and  the  world  was  nearer, 
Th'  All-harmony  centered  all,  the  end  was  clearer. 
That  genuine  soul-shaped  outward  self  of  thine 
First  called  the  world-soul  to  these  eyes  of  mine; 
And  then,  thy  whole  self,  in  relation  dearer, — 
Thou  dearest  mother  of  this  child  of  mine, — 
Thou  epitome  of  the  spheral  world-design, — 
Evolved  a  world-soul  from  that  soul  of  mine. 


THE  END. 


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